THE GREAT 



i 



iram 



By MNM WAED BEECHER 

.G\ AND OTHER 0i 
f FAMOUS AUTHORS * 





Class _ 
Book_ 






Copyright}! 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



THE GREAT BIBLE RENOWNS. 




HENRY WARD BEECHER 



THE GREAT 
BIBLE RENOWNS 

A SEQUEL TO THAT GREAT BOOK— "BIBLE 
CHARACTERS." 



DESCRIBED AND ANALYZED IN THE SERMONS AND 
WRITINGS OF THE 

FOLLOWING FAMOUS AUTHORS: 

Henry Ward Beecher. 
Thomas Guthrie. 
Charles H. Spurgeon. 

SUPPLEMENTED BY THE GREATEST POEMS IN PRINT 




CHICAGO: 

THOS. W. JACKSON PUBLISHING COMPANY. 

(Successors to Rhodes & McClure Publishing Company.) 



35% SI 
&1 



Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1915, 

by Thos. W. Jackson Publishing Company, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C. 

All Rights Reserved. 



MAR -6 1915 



CI.A39387U 



INTRODUCTION. 



BY THE REV. C. B. GILLETTE, PH. D. 



The editor of this volume has sought the scholars 
who have been recognized by the world as the leading 
religious teachers of their age, and culled from their ut- 
terances choice selections, respecting Jesus and the 
"Holy men of old, who spake as they were moved by 
the Holy Ghost." 

Henry Ward Beecher, the poet preacher, the philoso- 
pher, the theologian. As one said of him, "He was a poet 
without meter, a philosopher without classification, and 
a theologian without system, and yet he was a poet, a 
philosopher, and a theologian." 

Dr. Guthrie, who, with his earnest Scotch soul, scarce- 
ly paralleled even in Scotland itself, has contributed such 
rich jewels, not in the rough, but polished and finished. 

And of Spurgeon, what shall we say? What need we 
say? He is one whom the world knew but to admire, 
cherish and love. He was truly a preacher of Christ. I 
think one would be warranted in saying that none since 
the Apostle John has so promulgated and defended the 
Christ of the fourth Gospel, the divinity not only, but 
the Deity of Christ, as the Rev. Charles Spurgeon. 



CONTENTS. 



HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Christ 7 

Nicodemus 27 

Paul 30 

The Rich Fool 96 

The Prodigal Son 98 

Yield Not to Temptation 121 

THOMAS GUTHRIE. 

Jesus 122-169 

Adam 136-206 

Gideon 138 

St. John 141 

Man With the Withered Hand 143 

Moses 145-208-221 

Abraham 149 

Joram 150 

Jehu - 152 

Thief on the Cross 153 

St. Paul : . 154-165-217 

St. Peter 159 

Samson 161-215 

Nehemiah 161 

Job 163-211 

Jacob 204 

Joshua 206 

God 209 

Absalom 215 

Queen Esther 216 

Woman 223 

Lead Kindly Light 225 



CONTENTS— Continued 



CHARLES H. SPURGEON. 

Abraham 226 

Adam 231 

Balaam 233 

Christ 237 

KElisha 262 

God 267 

Hagar and Ishmael 272 

Jesus 275 

l/Job 353 

Judas 359 

Paul 361 

Philip 381 

Pilate 384 

Pilate's Wife 390 

Sarah 394 

Saul 396 

The Prodigal Son 398 

Zacchaeus 419 

America 423 



THE GREAT BIBLE RENOWNS 

DISCUSSED BY THE TALENTED ORATORS 
AND PULPITEER' 

HENRY WARD BEECHER. 



CHRIST. 

We read in the second chapter of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews : 

"Wherefore, in all things it behooved Him to be 
made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful 
and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to 
make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in 
that He himself hath suffered, being tempted, He is able 
to succor them that are tempted." 

From the time that theology received from the Greek 
mind a philosophic and systematic form, there has been, 
as compared with the sacred Scriptures, a total change of 
the point of view in which Christ is presented — if not 
universally, yet to a great extent. The whole force of 
controversy has been to fix the place, the title and the 
nature of Christ. 

This is a dynastic idea. I do not say that it ought not 
to be sought out in any degree; but I do say that it is 
not in accordance with the structure and comprehen- 

7 



CHRIST. 



sive aim of the New Testament, and it is not using the 
facts or revelations of the New Testament as they were 
originally used, and as they were intended to be used. It 
is something outside the purposes of those facts or reve- 
lations. 

The genius of the New Testament is to present, in 
Jesus, the most attractive and winning view of God, to 
inspire men with a deep sense of the divine sympathy 
and helpfulness, and to draw men to Christ as the One 
who can meet all their wants while living, when dying 
and in the great life beyond. 

Over these three great circuits which the imagination 
makes — Life, Death and Eternity— Christ is represented 
as having dominion ; and He is presented to men in such 
aspects as tend, according to the laws of the human soul, 
to draw them toward Him in confidence, in love, and in 
an obedience which works by love. 

Therefore, it is as Teacher, Guide, Brother and 
Savior — it is as Shepherd, Physician and Deliverer — it is 
as a Mediator, a Forerunner and a Solicitor in court — 
ihat Christ is familiarly represented. He is sometimes, 
also — though seldom as compared with other represen- 
tations — represented as a Judge or a Vindicator. 

The force of the representations of the Gospels, and 
pi the laws which have sprung from the Gospels, is to 
present Christ as so seeking the highest ends of human 
life and so aiming at the noblest developments of char- 
acter in men that every man who feels degraded, bound 
or overcome by evil shall also feel : ' ' Here is my Suc- 
cor ; here is my Remedy for that which is wrong ; here 
is my Guide toward that which is right ; here is my Help 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 9 

in those great emergencies for which human strength is 
vain. Living or dying, we are the Lord's." This is the 
spirit that was meant to be inculcated. 

Christ came, He said himself, not to condemn the 
world, but that the world through Him might have life. 

"The Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, 
but to save them." 

If, then, we take our stand at the point of view 
through which the Scriptures were developed, we shall 
remove, I think, many of the difficulties which embarrass 
the minds of men, and which prevent their making a 
personal and saving use of Jesus Christ as He is present- 
ed in the Scriptures. 

The identification of the Lord Jesus Christ with the 
human race has been a fertile theme of comment, of 
criticism and of skepticism. Many have objected to it 
as unworthy of any true conception of the divine nature. 

Now, it was not the purpose of the New Testament 
to undertake to show us the whole nature of God, and 
to give us the elements by which we could abstractly 
judge as to what was fitting and what was not fitting. 

We are limited in our judgment of the divine nature 
by the elements of our own being ; for that which is not 
in some sense represented in us we can have no concep- 
tion of. The immutable principles of truth, of honor, 
of justice, of love and of mercy, in human nature, fur- 
nish us the materials by which we are enabled to judge 
of the divine nature. 

Is it not, then, worthy of our conception of God that 
He should seek to win the race to confidence in Him ? 



10 CHRIST. 

Is there a better way for Him to do it than by identify- 
ing Himself with the race ? 

When Christ wished to do His kindest works He did 
not stand afar off, saying : " Be this done, and be that 
done." He took the blind man by the hand, and led him 
out of the town and healed him. He drew near to those 
whom He wished to bless, and touched them. He laid 
His hands on them. And that which fell out in the indi- 
vidual instances of Christ's life was the thing which was 
done in regard to the whole scheme of Christ's appear- 
ing. If God spoke to men not from afar off by the word 
of mouth, or intermediately through great natural laws ; 
if He sent His Son into the world to bring men, in their 
conditions, and according to their language, according to 
their modes of understanding, to a true notion of what 
the divine disposition and purpose were, was not that 
the best way in which to win their confidence ? 

If this is so, then there can not be a method devised 
by which the human race can be more surely won to 
confidence than by the incarnation of Jesus Christ. 

If you look, in the light of an abstract divine pro- 
priety, at the whole history which is given in the Gospels 
of the incarnation of Christ, you will reach one sort of 
result ; but if you look at it from the side of the human 
mind and of human want, which is the side that is pre- 
sented in the New Testament, another and an entirely 
different view will be arrived at. 

We are not put into possession of those materials by 
which God, standing in the midst of His moral govern- 
ment, universal and all-glorious, can be inspected by us, 
except in one particular — namely, in regard to what will 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER, 11 

do good to a race that is so low as this is and haa been. 
Looked at from that point of view, would it not be divine 
beneficence, would it not stimulate human emotion, 
would it not tend to draw men toward God, if He should 
conduct His mission and ministry on Earth so that men 
would feel that they could interpret His nature by the 
experience of their own ? Would not that have the effect 
to win men back to Him ? 

Let me illustrate in another way. 

What is that which is most becoming in woman — 
what, but that she should dwell with her kindred ? What, 
but that she should separate herself from that which is 
rude and coarse ? What, but that all those sweeter vir- 
tues which refinement breeds should blossom from he.-r 
perpetually ? 

We think of her as the child in the cradle — as the 
daughter at home — as the maiden sought or won — as the 
young bride — and as the matron. All these elements 
enter into our conception of the dignity and beauty of 
woman. 

Questioned as to her sphere and her functions, every 
one instinctively would say that her sphere and her func- 
tions were those of moral elevation, of refinement and of 
intellectual culture. Every one would say that she was 
born to make home bright and beautiful. 

And yet, when that great concussion came which 
seemed likely to rend the continent from East to West ; 
when a million men in the North were tramping south- 
ward and a million men in the South were tramping 
northward, and all was rude warfare ; when men were 
gathered from every side of humanity, good and bad, 



12 CHRIST. 



mingled and fighting together under the flag — where on 
Earth could you have found more dirt, more blood, more 
confusion or more rudeness than in the hospitals outlying 
the edges of the battle fields ? 

And yet, woman walked there — an angel of light and 
mercy. Many and many a poor soldier, the child of 
Christian parents, dying, was led by woman's ministra- 
tion, under those adverse circumstances, from the very 
borders of hell to the very heights of faith and hope and 
belief in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

There, in the place most unlikely, in the last place 
you would have spoken of as the true sphere of woman 
— there woman reaped a glory that shall never die so 
long as there are annals of this land. And so long as 
there are annals of our dear old Fatherland, Florence 
Nightingale's name will be remembered. 

There will never be any who will forget that it was 
in circumstances of humiliation, rudeness and confusion 
— circumstances where there was every thing which was 
most repellent to taste and refinement — that she stood 
to relieve suffering. 

Now, when you think of the Lord Jesus Christ, if, 
with the Greeks, you project some great crystal scheme 
of government, and conceive of Him as administering 
it ; if you form, in the stithy of your imagination, an 
ideal of a perfect God, ruling over men, and bring that 
ideal into this world — do you not leave God at an inac- 
cessible height above the heart of man ? 

But, I ask, in case the object of this revelation is to 
win men, would it not be the best thing that you could 
do to say : * ' He was born of woman ; He grew from 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 13 

childhood to manhood, and at thirty years of age He 
became a teacher"? 

If the design is to inspire the human race with confi- 
dence and sympathy toward their Maker and their Judge, 
will not this be the very thing above all others that will 
do it ? 

Bring the divine nature from the vast cloudy sphere 
beyond into this world, transmute it into the conditions 
in which we live and which limit our understanding, and 
conceive of Jehovah as Immanuel — "God with us" — 
and you do that which is better calculated than any thing 
else to present the conception of God so that men's 
hearts shall take hold of Him. For that which we need, 
after all, is a tendril which shall unite us to God. 

Our God must not be to us as a storm nor as fire, if 
we are to cling to Him. The storm and the fire may 
make men afraid of evil, but they never will call forth 
men's love. 

You might, by the north wind, throw the convolvu- 
lus, the morning glory, the queen of flowers, prostrate 
along the ground ; but it is only when the warm Sun 
gives it leave that it twines upward about that which is 
to support it, and blesses it a thousand fold by its efflo- 
rescence all day long. 

The terrors of the Lord may dissuade men from evil, 
but it is the warm shining of the heart of God that will 
bring men toward His goodness and toward Him. 

This view of Christ meets both theories of mep's 
origin. 

If men are descended from a higher plane by the fall 
of their ancestors, this view of God seeking their recu 



14 CHRIST. 



peration is eminently fitting ; or, if men are a race that 
is emerging from a lower plane and seeking a spiritual 
condition, it is equally fitting. 

In either case, what they want is a succoring God ; 
and such was Jesus Christ as presented to the world in 
His incarnation. 

Added force is given to the simple narrative of the 
life of Jesus if we look at it from the point of view 
which we have been considering — namely, such a teach- 
ing as shall lead men to confidence in God and commun- 
ion with Him. 

If you ask what is becoming in a dramatic God, or 
in an ideal Sovereign, you will get one result, and it will 
be a human result. If you ask what would be likely to 
inspire the human family with a profound sense of God's 
sympathy with mankind, and of His helpfulness toward 
them, would not that be the very result of the presenta- 
tion of Christ's life ? Look at it as the life of One who 
came to win men, and does it not touch the universal 
chords of sympathy ? 

He was born of a woman ; and that cloudy wonder, 
the mystery of the mother-heart (which no poet ever 
described, but which was known to Raphael, half woman 
as he was, and which was, though imperfectly, yet mar- 
velously, expressed in the Sistine Madonna) — that won- 
der enveloped him. 

As the mother, holding her child, looks with a vague 
reverence upon it, so our Savior was looked upon by His 
mother when He was a child in her arms. Therefore, 
there is not a child on the globe that has not had a Fore- 
runner. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRV WARD BEECHER. 15 

As a child, Christ grew in statute and in knowledge, 
knd that is as much a revelation as any other. Nor does 
it detract from a true and proper conception of divinity. 
For if one would make himself like unto his brethren he 
should begin where they began, and in every thing but 
sin should rise with them, step by step, all the way up. 

Following Christ through His childhood, we find that 
He was subject to His parents. Unquestionably, He 
participated in their industries, and lived a working man, 
in a great northern province crowded with a population 
which included all manner of foreign elements, under the 
dominion of a foreign scepter. 

There, in the midst of the distresses of the people— 
juid they were exceedingly great — He grew up a working 
man ; and there is nothing in the history or experience 
of the great mass of mankind who are working men that 
He is not fitted to sympathize with. 

Has not this already touched a universal chord ? Has 
it not even made skepticism admire it ? Men who reject 
as history the details of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ 
— men who set aside His miracles and many of His 
words — will not let die the character which He has lived 
and impressed upon the world's thought and the world's 
imagination. 

One of the most affecting things that I know of is 
the way in which men deal with this " fiction," as they 
call it. They take the life of Christ, and say that it is 
mythical ; or thev say that it is the life of an extraor- 
dinary man, of a geniui, bu* not of a divine Being. Yet 
it is a life that believer and unbelievei alike wi ] \ u^t let 
die. There are all sorts of men in the various schools 



16 CHRIST. 



who are saying of the nature and character which are 
attributed to Christ: "This is so wonderful a nature 
and character that the world would be impoverished if 
we were to lose it." 

Such impressions have been produced by the circum- 
stances in which Christ lived among men. 

The miracles of Christ, looked at from the same 
point of view, have been very much perverted by discus- 
sions, and by not being looked at along the line in which 
they were meant to play. 

They were simply charities. 

They were, to be sure, alleged to have a certain influ- 
ence among an abject and superstitious-minded people, 
but Christ himself under-valued them as moral evidence. 
They were alternative, as evidence. "If you will not 
believe me for my own sake," He says, "believe me for 
My works' sake." 

He held that the radiant presentation of a divine 
nature ought to carry its own evidence ; that when He 
appeared in speech, in conduct, in affluent affection, He 
was himself His own best evidence ; and yet, if they, 
by reason of obtuseness, could not believe in Him other- 
wise, He called upon them to believe in Him for the sake 
of His miracles. That would be better than nothing. 
But He discouraged and dissuaded men from seeking 
after miracles or signs. 

The miracles of Christ were, almost all of them, 
mere acts of benevolence. 

Christ was poor. He had neither money nor raiment 
to give ; and yet there was suffering around about Him, 
and He relieved it. The miracles of Christ were never 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHBR. 17 

wrought in an ostentatious way. Never were they 
wrought for the purpose of exalting Himself. They were 
not employed where arguments failed, to carry men away 
by superstitious enthusiasm. 

Multitudes resorted to Him for help — the sick, the 
blind, the deaf, lepers, all kinds of unfortunate people ; 
and miracles were His means of bestowing charity upon 
them. No hospital had He to which He could send them; 
He was His own hospital. No retinue or army had He 
to send out among the masses of the Palestinian land. 
His own hand and voice were His universal instruments 
of mercy. His miracles were His general acts of kind- 
ness. As laid down in the Gospel, they represent the 
heart of God. 

An error is often committed in regard to the benefi- 
cent deeds of the Redeemer and Savior of the world as 
to the purposes for which they were performed. They 
were never performed for His own sake. If there are 
apparent exceptions, there are no real ones. 

For instance, at the baptism of Christ, the sound of 
a voice and the descent of a dove were not His own 
miracles. They were imposed on Him. 

The greatest of all wonders which were wrought, in 
its dramatic beauty — -the Transfiguration — was as much 
a miracle of mercy as was the miracle of the loaves and 
fishes. The disciples had lately been driven out of Gali- 
lee, and they had come to Jerusalem, and their faith 
needed resuscitation — as also did His own, since He was 
in the form of man, not only, but had the experiences of 
a man ; and as they stood on the Mount He was, as it 
were, lifted up before them. Christ appeared to them 



IS CHRIST. 



to be in the midst of a luminous atmosphere, and heav- 
enly visitants were communing with Him. 

Thus were His disciples strengthened and prepared 
for a remote period, when He should be crucified and 
buried out of their sight. It was intended that there 
should be a witchery and magic connected with this 
event which should hold them to their faith in spite of 
\he lack of outward evidence. 

The ministration thus to the higher spiritual nature 
of these disciples was as bread and wine to the lower 
bodily wants of men. 

Now, if you adopt the philosophical view, and dis- 
cuss the peculiarities of Christ's miracles purely from the 
standpoint of nature, you will reach certain results ; but 
if you think they will be the results contemplated by the 
New Testament you are mistaken. 

For instance, I reach forth my hand and draw a 
drowning man out of the water. Some one, hearing of 
it, and wishing to give a philosophical explanation of the 
act, takes a hand ; he dissects it and paints it. 

First, he paints the whole hand ; then, underneath, 
he painti each finger separately ; then, below, he paints 
all the muscles. After all this is done he writes a little 
treatise on the structure and adaptation of the hand. 
Then he says: M There is my interpretation of that 
act." 

But it is not a dissected hand that the man thinks of, 
whom I seized at the risk of my life and rescued from 
the boiling flood. It does not occur to him that the hand 
which saved him was composed of bone, muscle, skin or 
any thing else. It was what was done by the hand Uaat 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHBR. 10 

interpreted itself to him, and that was the all-important 
thing. 

Miracles discussed philosophically are out of the 
sphere of Christian experience. What we want to know, 
along the line of Christ's miraculous deeds, is, that they 
all aimed at one thing — namely, the opening up of a 
more bountiful conception of divine sympathy than could 
have been developed under any other circumstances. 

Viewed in that light, they are a potential evidence, 
pot so much of the power to which they have almost 
always been referred, but of the inner heart of Jesus. 
They are a powerful development of the divine bounty 
and sympathy and kindness ; and who has the heart to 
dispute them on that line ? 

Looked at, also, from the same point of view — 
namely, that of the relations of Christ to the world for 
the sake of developing in men confidence in God and 
sympathy with Him — I remark that the Savior's suffer- 
ing and death will receive new light. Every thing 
becomes involved and difficult and inoperative the very 
moment you discuss the history of Christ from the mate- 
rial and dynastic sides. 

Why did Christ suffer ? 

If you say, in reply, "That He might redeem men 
from sin," you have said the whole ; and just so soon as 
you begin to go back and ask "How did His suffering 
redeem men from death ?" you are wandering right away 
from the heart of Christ to the cold Greek philosophical 
view of Him. 

If you bring to me the tidings that my mother is dead 
—she who bore me, and hovered over all my infant days, 



20 CHRIST. 



and tenderly loved me to the last — you open the flood- 
gates of sympathy in my soul. 

But suppose a physician comes to me and sits down 
by my side, and says : 

1 ' You understand, my young friend, that there are in 
the human frame a variety of systems — the vascular sys- 
tem, the bony system, the muscular system, the nervous 
system. You understand that there are vital organs — 
the stomach, the liver, the heart, the brain. Now, if you 
will listen, I will explain to you, in a philosophical man- 
ner, the causes of your mother's death. I will show you 
the way in which the blood ceased to circulate in her 
veins." 

He wants to read me an anatomical lecture on the 
nature of the reasons of my mother's death ! 

If I have wandered away from home and friends, and 
my mother is dead, and you come to break the intelli- 
gence to me, I think you will leave out of your message 
every thing except the announcement of her death and 
her last words. You will say, if such be the fact : ' ' She 
prayed for you, and she died exclaiming : ' My son ! O 
my son !' " 

And there is not a human heart that would not feel 
the power of a simple statement like this. 

Tell me that He who is to be my Judge bowed His 
head and came into my condition ; tell me that He was 
not ashamed to call men His brethren ; tell me that, be- 
ing in the form of God, and thinking it not robbery to 
be equal with God, He made himself of no reputation, 
and took upon Him the form of a servant, that He might 
minister to men ; tell me that He was tried and tempted 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 21 

in all points like as we are, and yet without sin, that He 
might know how to succor those who were in trial and 
temptation ; tell me that He died that His death might 
be a memorial of grace to men, and that He might ex- 
pound to human understandings the nature of God- — tell 
me these things, and I am satisfied. 

" Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay 
down his life for his friends." Tell me what that means. 

It is declared that Christ gave His life for the world. 
What is the meaning of that ? Away with your barbaric 
notions ! Away with the idea of marshaled forces ! 
Away with the thought of imperial coercions ! 

That which I derive from the fragrance and sweet- 
ness of that magnificent sacrifice which was made in 
Christ's death is sufficient for me. 

All that I want to know is that the heart of God is a 
heart that yearns for men — that it is a paternal heart, by 
which the universe is to be lifted up and saved. I do 
not stop to ask what is the relation of the suffering of the 
Lord Jesus Christ to divine law ; neither do I stop to ask 
what its relation is to the moral government of the uni- 
verse ; nor do I stop to ask what is its relation to the 
teaching of the Old Testament. 

All these things may have their proper place in an 
outside work ; but to discuss them and make them a part 
of Gospel truths is to go not only out of, but against, 
the example and spirit of the New Testament. For that 
which the sufferings and death of Christ mean to you and 
to me is that God so loved the world that He gave His 
only begotten Son to die for it, and that in this sacrifice 
we have the manifestation, not only of the power, but of 



CHRIST. 



the disposition of God to save us from animalism, from 
degradation, from guilt and from sin that breeds guilt, 
and to bring us into a knowledge of the spiritual life and 
make us sons of God. 

Therefore, was there ever such a perversion as that 
by which theology has blunted the sensibilities and frozen 
the instincts of men, and presented to them a sort of 
Greek philosophy of the atonement of Christ Jesus — by 
which that sort of mechanical balancing of forces which 
men have called atonement has been urged upon men ? 

That which the human heart wanted and Christ and 
the New Testament gave was not a substantive noun, 
meaning some arrangement or plan, but the truth of a 
living, personal Savior. 

I can say of these scholastic discussions : ' ' They 
have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they 
have laid Him." 

But yes, I do know where they have laid Him. They 
have laid Him under the dry bones of philosophy. They 
have covered Him up with slavish systems which impose 
upon men the performance of certain duties, the observ- 
ance of given forms and ceremonies and obedience to 
certain rules, as the conditions of their salvation. Acts 
have been prescribed for men, when all that they wanted 
to know was that there was a stream flowing out from 
under the throne of God and for ever carrying to men 
life-giving influences. This stream, sent forth out of the 
center of God's throne, is the impulse of the centuries. 
It is the wisdom of God and the power of God unto sal- 
vation to every man that believes. 

So accepted, the sufferings of Christ, His cleath, His 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HEN »,Y WARD BEECHER. 23 

resurrection and glory, are powers ; but the moment you 
turn them into a philosophy they are dead and dry, and 
they crackle under the pot of discussion until all its con- 
tents are evaporated and gone. 

I remark, once more, that the views of Christ's resur- 
rection, His ascension, His glorification and His reigning 
state in Heaven, as they are presented in the Scriptures, 
are exceedingly comforting, and Cfttsrt an amazing influ- 
ence ; but when they are presented by close analysis, by 
a philosophical statement, they lose all their power and 
shake down upon us no fruit whatever. 

Christ is our Forerunner ; this we can form some con- 
ception of. He is the first-fruits of them that slept ; this, 
while it brings no special idea to us, to the Jew brought 
most joyous associations. He is our Mediator ; he is our 
Intercessor. We instinctively feel the force of the help- 
fulness of these figures. 

Now, you will spoil it all if you go into a complete 
analysis, and specify every thing that you can imagine of 
a forerunner, and tell what he does do and what he does 
not do ; if you undertake to draw an exact parallel be- 
tween the first fruits of them that slept and the first 
fruits of the harvests of the Jews ; if you undertake to 
dissect and regulate the offices of a mediator between 
God and man, or a mediator of the new covenant ; if you 
undertake to describe the functions of an intercessor. 

All the aroma will evaporate if you go thus into de- 
tail. 

If you tell me that Christ died for men, and that He 
now lives in Heaven for them ; that He is their Inter- 
cessor near to God, the^gource of all power ; that He 



24 CHRIST. 



thinks of them and governs them; that He is bringing 
many sons and daughters home to glory; that He is our 
Forerunner in the world beyond ; that He is our Solicitor 
in court — if you tell me these things, I am comforted. 

But the more you undertake to refine these meta- 
phors and reduce them to exactitude, the more you take 
away the comfort which might be derived from them. 
Let them stand in their simplicity, if you would have 
them powerful in their influence upon the imagination, 
the heart and the life. 

If you take a cluster of flowers just as they are, with 
the dew on them, how exquisite they are ! But you tar- 
nish them by just so much as you meddle with them. 
Every one who dissects a flower must make up his mind 
to lose it. 

That sweetest flower of Heaven, from which exhales 
perfume for ever and for ever; that dearest and noblest 
conception that the human imagination ever gathered out 
of father and mother, out of leader and benefactor, out 
of shepherd and protector, out of companion and brother 
and friend; all that ever was gracious in government — 
these various elements, rising together, are an interpre- 
tation, in a kind of large and vague way, to the imagi- 
nation, and through the imagination to the heart, that 
there is, at the center of universal authority toward 
which we are all going, One who cares for us — One who 
bears our burdens — One who guides our career — One who 
hears our cry — and One, though He does not interpret 
himself to us, who will at last make it plain that all 
things have worked together for the good of those that 
have trusted in Him. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 25 

Now, a man, as a philosopher, may preach Christ 
from beginning to end, and yet his people may grow in 
grace and in the knowledge of Christ ; but that is not 
the general result of such preaching. 

The way is to preach Christ, and to aim at preaching 
Christ, so that the souls of the people shall be built up 
in the Lord Jesus Christ ; and it is exactly in this way 
that I have desired to preach Christ among you. 

O my brethren ! We are not far from the end of our 
journey. It matters very little what this world and time 
have fci us. The other world is near to us, and it mat- 
ters every thing how we shall land there. We have our 
burdens, our crosses, our poignant sorrows, sickness and 
death, embarrassments, bankruptcy, trials, and if not 
outward scourgings yet inward scourgings. 

We are not exempt from the great lot of mankind ; 
and we go crying often with prone heads. We are like 
bulrushes before the wind — bowed down to the very 
Earth. And is it a comfort for you to know that there 
is a God who thinks of you ? 

Know that there is One who is crying out in the 
silence, if you could only by your spiritual hearing listen, 
saying : "Come boldly to the throne of grace, and ob- 
tain mercy and help in time of need. " 

O throne of iron, from which have been launched 
terrible lightnings and thunders that have daunted men \ 
O throne of crystal, that has coldly thrown out beams 
upon the intellect of mankind ! O throne of mystery, 
around about which have been clouds and darkness ! O 
throne of Grace, where He sits regnant who was my 
brother, who has tasted of my lot, who knows my 



26 C8RIST. 

' Ii mm —— — — B— — WP— ■— ■ — l ■ ■ i ill I II I i l II li UTiiiMim — g. 

trouble, my sorrow, my yearning and longing for immor- 
tality ! O Jesus, crowned, not for Thine own glory, but 
with power of love for the emancipation of all struggling 
spirits, Thou art my God \ 

And is He your God ? 

Ah, yes ! I beseech every one who has any trouble 
—every one who needs help — to try the help of God 
given through Jes? a in faith and trust. You can not 
please Him better. Come, lay down your anxiety and 
your strivings ; lift up your heart, and believe that He 
who has guided Mis people like a flock will guide you, 
and perfect you, and bring you home to immortality. 

You are urder a great misapprehension if you think 
that Christ, except when going through His passion, was 
an unhappy man. 

I have read with great care and scrutiny the history 
of His early life, and I am satisfied that, except during 
the last thirty days of His career, when He suffered for 
sacrificial purposes, He was happy. 

The early part of Christ's life was a beautiful one. 
He was a noble Jew, and He was admired of His coun- 
trymen—not because they thought Him to be, in the way 
that we do, abstractly a divine personage — but because 
they thought Him to be about the greatest specimen of 
a Jew that had ever appeared in their nation. He was 
a prophet to them. 

Why was He so much to them ? Because He typi- 
fied the best things which had been known in the Jewish 
religion for a thousand years. He stood as a glowing 
example of their ideals. They were mistaken in their 
supposition that He was to be at the head of their phy»- 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 21 

ical kingdom, and to add to their power, dominating and 
governing in a material point of view ; but He was their 
ideal so far as manhood and patriotism were concerned. 

In all His early years He was loved and followed. He 
had that which made every man happy. He possessed 
the power to make men happy with the look of His eye. 
He had the power of teaching men to extract honey 
from rebuke and sorrow. He had power to dry the tear 
of bereavement and to assuage the pain of suffering. He 
had the power to carpet the earth with flowers. He had 
the power to quiet the storm. Light and darkness were 
His ministers of mercy. Where He went men felt the 
breath of Spring, the balm of Summer and the glory and 
richness of Autumn. 

His life, as a whole, was a beautiful exemplification 
of how happy religion ought to make men. 



NICODEMUS. 



One of the most thoroughly misrepresented men in 
the Holy Scripture is Nicodemus. He was a man of 
great sagacity and purity of life. So far as we have any 
record, or can deduce any inferences from the facts, he 
was a superior man, having but one lack. He had not 
the demonstrative element in him to any considerable 
degree. He was not a bustler ; he was not a talker ; he 
was not a man who made the most of every thing he did. 

You will recollect that at this time John was baptiz- 
iag ; that Jesus had been baptized, and that the devout 



28 VICODEMVt. 

Jews were thinking very seriously about baptism into the 
new kingdom ; and Nicodemus, as a very conscientious 
man, doubtless had it in his mind and in his purpose to 
be baptized as a fresh start in life, or in righteousness. 

Jesus said to Nicodemus: "It is necessary to be 
more than baptized. " He doubtless pointed to some- 
thing in his thought and feeling. It was necessary that 
there should be the water and the Holy Ghost. It was 
the additional element of the divine Spirit that was to 
be emphatic. 

It is said that Nicodemus came to Jesus by night for 
fear of the Jews, and that therefore he was a timid and 
cowardly man ; but he did not go to Jesus by night for 
fear of the Jews. 

That statement is made up by taking two passages, 
one of which is contained in another part of John's Gos- 
pel, where it says that many rulers spoke of Christ, but 
for fear of the Jews did not come to Him. 

That sentence has been taken and put upon Nicode- 
mus ; and the theory has always been that he came to 
Jesus by night for fear of the Jews. But unquestionably 
he was one of the listeners that heard the discourses of 
our Savior to the great crowd, and was not, like the most 
of them, satisfied with the little that he took in. That 
which he heard of Christ touched a feeling which resided 
very deep in his nature. This was a man that he want- 
ed to see. 

A very great soul carries in itself unexpressed and in- 
expressible thoughts and yearnings and desires ; and to 
the greatest there is nothing so joyful as to find some one 
that is greater, who can solve or succor or strengthen or 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 29 

enlighten ; and Nicodemus came to Christ by night sim- 
ply because only then could he sit down for a meal, pour 
himself out, and ask enlightenment. 

It was not cowardice ; it was hunger — soul hunger — 
that brought him by night to Christ. Then only could 
he find what he longed for. 

A strange kind of cowardice his was ! 

When the Savior's career was well advanced, and the 
templars had determined on His destruction, Nicodemus, 
being a member of the Sanhedrim — that is, of the high- 
est council of the Jews ; he, being in honor, having the 
class feeling, knowing that they had determined on the 
death of Christ ; he, when the messengers came back 
and reported that "never man spake like this man," 
rebuked his fellows in the Sanhedrim, who scornfully 
derided, saying: " These people — these coarse, vulgar 
folk — do not know the law." 

Nicodemus, standing among his own peers, who were 
all leagued and bonded against Christ, calmly asked this 
question : " Doth our law condemn any man until he is 
heard ?" 

Is that cowardice, for a man to stand up among those 
around about him, in a time of Christ's peril and in a 
time when men had their faces set on His destruction, 
and calmly bring their own laws home to them, and 
rebuke them ? 

And when all was over, when the crucifixion was past; 
when the terrible drama had been enacted ; when the 
disciples were all scattered, and there was not one of 
them to take care of the remains of their Master, Joseph 
of Arimathea got leave to take charge of the body ; and 



30 PAUL. 



then it was that Nicodemus went with Joseph of Arima- 
thea, and took the body of Christ, and embalmed it and 
buried it. 

Were these the deeds of a coward ? 

I tell you, Nicodemus was one of the calmest and 
most courageous of the men who appeared in the New 
Testament, and his name should no longer be a synonym 
for timidity. It should rather be a synonym for consci- 
entiousness, for quietness and for courage — a courage 
that is genuine and real. 

Anybody can be courageous with a crowd, but very 
few men can be courageous against a crowd. Anybody 
can be courageous with the stream of public sentiment, 
but it is hard for a man to be courageous standing alone. 
Nicodemus could do that. 

Now, there were a great many men in Jerusalem ; 
but it is likely that if you had tried you would scarcely 
have found another man who was the peer of Nicodemus 
for various excellences ; and it was all the more remark- 
able that to such a man Jesus declared : " That which 
is born of the flesh is flesh ; and that which is born of 
the spirit is spirit." " Ye must be born again." 



PAUL. 

"PUT on the whole armor of God, that ye may be 
able to stand against the wiles of the devil. " 

1 ' Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be 
able to withstand in the evil day. " 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. Si 

By nature Paul was a general. He had all those 
sympathetic and magnetic qualities which tended power- 
fully to influence men. He had the sense, as it may be 
said, of mankind. He knew their feelings. He knew 
how to approach them. He had an intense nature. He 
was full of allowable ingenuity and strategy in the art of 
thinking. His figures are not meditative. They are 
almost never drawn from the quiet aspects of nature. 
There is very little of simple sweetness and of simple 
beauty in them. 

The idea of beauty seems hardly to have entered into 
Paul's mind. 

It is inconceivable that a man should have gone to 
Athens in the days of its glory, and seen that which one 
might almost give a life to see, and should have left no 
word about it. No statue glitters in his reminiscences. 
Of no temple did he give any description. The gor- 
geousness and glory of Grecian painting and Grecian art 
at large seem to have left on his mind almost no trace. 
Nor do we find anywhere a sense of the beautiful in his 
mind and thought. 

But wherever men strove to the uttermost, there he 
saw something. 

Paul's whole soul was filled with the thought of men 
— men developed to energy. Whatever was brought 
forth anywhere of skill and zeal and endeavor furnished 
him themes for contemplation. Men practicing athletic 
games, men at work, soldiers in armies — these provided 
him with illustrations. Though some of his figures are 
drawn from the household, some from civil life and some 
from governments, they are all astir. They move, they 



32 PAUL. 

move, it could not have been otherwise. The best 
pointed arrow may go leisurely flying through the air 
from a weak bow ; but even a poor arrow whizzes from 
a bow of steel. Whatever the figures were, when Paul 
let them fly they went. 

In the instances before us, he brings up before the 
mind the equipment of an old Roman soldier, covered 
with iron from head to foot— waiting for the attack and 
standing to the uttermost. 

Now, Christ came to put an end to war. He was the 
Prince of peace and good-will toward men ; and it is 
strange enough that a warlike figure should have been 
chosen to designate the life of a follower of Christ. Yet, 
there was no unfitness in it. 

The spiritual conflicts of men, or their endeavors to 
live aright — evading, resisting, overcoming, subduing 
utterly or annihilating spiritual enemies — these are a part 
of the great warfare in life ; and so the illustration is not 
an unfit one. It implies the all-surrounding dangers that 
beset a Christian man, and the need of most ample and 
thorough preparation on the part of every Christian for 
the life conflict. 

According to Apostle Paul's view, every one who 
would rise into a full Christian state of mind, and abide 
in it, must put forth efforts to that end. 

We can not inherit religion. We may inherit, more 
or less, a moral constitution ; we may inherit aptitudes 
in the direction of religious thought and religious emo- 
tion. But character was never born, nor does it ever 
come by accident. Character is built up from the very 
foundation. It is but another name for consecutive hab- 



BIBLE CHARACTER*. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 33 

its ; and habits are the results to which men come by 
successive and continuous operations of their own will. 

Nothing, more than does a high religious character, 
demands that men should put forth the utmost exertions, 
and exertions long continued. 

The adversaries which the Apostle mentions here are 
worthy of our regard for a moment : 

"We wrestle not against flesh and blood." 

That is, we do not wrestle against them principally. 
We are not to take our measure from them. We wrestle 
against governments, against the rulers of the world — 
against powers, whatever they may be and wherever they 
may be. 

' ' We wrestle against the rulers of the darkness of 
this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. 
Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that 
ye may be able to withstand in the evil day." 

There is something in this very obscurity ; there is 
something in this very amplitude of description of dan- 
gers above, dangers below, dangers on every side — dan- 
gers from common men, dangers from magistrates, 
dangers from governments, dangers from occupations, 
dangers from within and from without, dangers every- 
where and always, dangers that environ us in every way, 
dangers proceeding from all sorts of temptation. 

There is something in these things which would seem 
to make it necessary for us to arm ourselves, and to 
never cease watching and fortifying ourselves against the 
multitudes of evils which surround us. We are nowhere 
and at no time free from liabilities to temptation ana 
downfall. 



34 PAUL. 

The customs and usages of life in business or pleas- 
ure all tend powerfully to educate, not the highest nature 
but the lowest feelings, as they are conducted by men. 
For, though I do aver that the course of nature and the 
normal operations of society are moral educators, and 
were designed to be such, and have inherent tendencies 
which are constantly striving to produce in men a moral 
basis and a moral character, yet these natural schools 
where men are educated to higher and truer manliness 
are constantly perverted. They are under influences 
which tend to make them false educators ; so that this 
world, which should teach men industry, frugality, fore- 
sight, sympathy man with man, kindness, punctuality, 
truth, honor and fairness, is teaching them these things 
in a measure ; but, after all, it teaches them pride, in- 
ordinate self-reliance, vanity, avarice, selfishness and 
brutal combativeness. It fills them with all manner of 
unregulated passions and appetites. 

But you can not avoid this. 

If you go out of the world to get rid of the tempta* 
tions which spring from without, you fall upon tempta- 
tions that spring from within. For no man is in such 
fatal danger as the man who is lazy, and who is with 
himself alone or mainly. There are no temptations 
which work such mean fermentations as those which 
spring upon men who live solitary lives. 

Though outward associations, by turning a man un- 
duly one way or another, may impair the moral tone of 
his character to a certain extent ; yet they carry with 
them a sanitary influence, many of them. A man who 
has broken away from his fellows, and retired from life ; 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 35 

a man who feels at liberty to go out from the great bat- 
tle of manhood, and sequester himself, and dwell in his 
own sweet meditations, and live for his own perfection ; 
one who avoids burdens, and yokes, and conflicts, and 
dangers — such a man is the meanest of men. There is 
in him a lack of pluck, a lack of stamina, a lack of moral 
enterprise, a lack of generosity, a lack of large benevo- 
lence — all of which are indispensable to manhood. 

So, then, you can not go out of life if you would. 
You meet the grim devil of selfishness and the minor 
evils of life more in solitude than anywhere else. 

In life you meet all the fiery seductions which come 
from one spirit or another of the passions and appetites 
which are inflamed among men — the strong biasing the 
weak, and those of inordinate means sweeping away 
those who have little or no means, and the wise domi- 
neering over the simple. 

If you go into the Church, it has its dangers and its 
temptations. If you go into the Exchange, it has its 
own liabilities and perils. If you go into the street, you 
find dangers there. In the wilderness, on the highway, 
on the sea — in foreign lands, at home — doing the work 
of morality, performing the necessary economic duties of 
human life, in high positions and in low — everywhere 
men are surrounded by temptations and by evils ; and no 
man can avoid them or evade them. He can not shut 
himself out from them. 

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither 
bond nor free, there is neither male nor female ; for ye 
are all one in Christ Jesus." 

How splendidly the j)ld Jewish feeling comes out in 



36 PAUL. 

that third chapter of Galatians ! Paul stood in Athens 
a veritable Jew. The temples glistened on every side of 
him. The streets were lined with statues, a single one 
of which is the envy of modern nations. 

But through all these the moral element broke ; and 
that which occupied the Apostle's attention was the 
preaching of the true Jehovah, who dwelt not in any 
temple ; who could not be worshiped by men's hands 
bringing various offerings into the temple ; who was not 
a God of gold, or silver, or precious stones, or ivory, or 
marble, or what-not, but a God who made all these 
things, and who united the whole human race under Him 
into one great brotherhood. 

This was the Apostle's thought, and this is essentially 
his annunciation here — the substantial unity of the 
human family. 

God's kingdom — that is, the ideal mankind, looked 
at in the light and under the influence of Jesus Christ — 
is not divided up by artificial lines, but is an absolute 
united brotherhood. 

From the spiritual plane, looking down upon the hu- 
man race, it is one great family ; and as God is the 
Father, the whole race is His household, and all the di- 
verse scattered elements of the human family are, after 
all, interiorly grouped together, in the eye of God and 
of His providence, as one great unity, one vast brother- 
hood. 

This truth, which in our time is becoming so much 
insisted upon, is not a vague sentiment. Still less is it 
sentimentality. The brotherhood of the race of man- 
kind rests on well defined ideas. It has a substratum. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 37 

It has most important relations and uses. The essential 
likeness of all the races on earth indicates their unity. 

One of the most interesting studies in the New Tes- 
tament is the progress of the development which may be 
traced in the mind of Apostle Paul. 

From the time that he entered upon a Christian life 
to the time that he left it, there was in him, as there is 
or ought to be in every noble-minded person, a steady 
development and growth ; so that the last part of his life 
was vastly richer than the earlier parts of it — more ten- 
der I mean. 

I do not refer to his conduct, for of that we know 
little ; but there is reflected from his later writings a light 
purer, more transcendently elevated, than that which 
belonged to his earlier writings. For, whatever doctrine 
of inspiration you may hold, it is perfectly certain that 
inspiration always carries with it something of the mate- 
rial through which it acts, and that therefore human 
intelligence is a part of it, so that the laws of that intel- 
ligence are also taken into consideration. 

There is no such thing as a divine revelation or a 
divine inspiration which takes out of the divine nature, 
as it were, the picture of a truth, and puts it into the 
world without any human mixture. Material things are 
discovered to us through human organs ; and the prog- 
ress of knowing the things which we see or hear implies 
the exercise, the education and the finer development of 
the senses themselves. And that which is true of the 
lower nature or mind of man is still more true of the 
higher reason, which works through the moral sense and 
perceives interior divine truths, which are as much higher 



38 PAUL. 

tha^ onamon truths as the soul is higher than the body. 
Now, that part of the Apostle's life, near its close, when 
he was writing in prison, was the most notable part. 

The studies — »he scenes of labor — of a great many 
remarkable men have been preserved, and have been 
visited. I went to see where Jonathan Edwards wrote 
his "Treatise on the Will," in old Stockbridge, and sat 
down in the chair that he used, and at the table where 
he worked. 

In Scotland, I went t«) the house where John Knox 
lived, and sat down in his study room. 

I went, in Geneva, to the church where John Calvin 
preached, and went into the pulpit where he so many 
times stood. 

I should be glad if Bedfoird Jail were yet standing, 
and I could go into that, and could see where it was that 
John Bunyan wrote his memorable "Pilgrim's Progress." 

But of all places on earth, the one that I would visit 
first, if it were yet in existence and I could, would be the 
sepulcher of the Savior ; and next to that would be the 
old Roman prison where Paul wrote. 

Manacled and watched over by the ever-present sen- 
try, Paul sent forth from that dark, cold and desolate 
spot a light which has redeemed captivity ; which has 
dissipated darkness ; which has inspired manhood ; and 
which not only has made all mankind akin one to an- 
other, but has united this visible world with the invisible 
spiritual kingdom. 

In the last letters which Paul wrote, during the clos- 
ing years of his life, he was caught up, and was rendered 
intensely conscious of the divine nature — of the riches 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 39 

that were in God, revealed through Christ. It was made 
still larger to his comprehension by the revelation of the 
Holy Ghost, which was given to him as it is given to all 
those who are prepared for it and will take it. 

This was the direction in which Paul's mind traveled 
as he grew richer, stronger and older — that is, younger ; 
because the older we grow the nearer we are to being 
born into the spiritual world, which is the true birth. 
The nearer Paul came to that world, the more experience 
he had, and the more it seemed to concentrate upon this 
thought — the exceeding riches of God in goodness, in 
grace, in mercy, in love, in kindness, iri evisry thing. 

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, 
whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, 
whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, 
whatsoever things are of good report ; if there be any 
virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things. " 

These were among the very last words that were 
penned by Paul. He was in prison, and he wrote them 
with a manacled hand, chained to a soldier, rejoicing 
that even his bonds were blest, and that the heroism of 
his suffering made many bold to speak the truth of Christ 
-—even in the household of the despot who soon sought 
and took his life ; so that this light breaks out from the 
darkness of the dungeon. 

How Paul's last days were spent we know not. There 
was no decline by reason of sickness. The waste — the 
decay — we are spared an account of from him. 

He rises as a spirit burning with the most noble sen- 
timents, with the most heroic feelings, and with a life 
astonishing by its disinterestedness, by its fervor, by its 



40 PAUL. 

wonderful success — a life which did not end with the 
falling of the body, for he rose to a noble sphere, to 
join in higher labors; and the truths which he had 
uttered came on down through the generations which 
followed. 

There never have been any brighter scenes than those 
through which Apostle Paul passed ; and there has never 
been a man who, on so high a level of enthusiastic sen- 
timent, has equaled or been fit to be likened to him. 
Aside from Christ, he is the one shining light of the New 
Testament dispensation — standing there as Moses stood 
in the Old Testament dispensation. 

Though the Jews, running far back in their thoughts 
toward antiquity, spoke evermore with veneration of the 
founders of their nation — Abraham, Isaac and Jacob — 
and not improperly, yet all these great names are mere 
shadows. They have left no special memorial — no great 
truth which they bore and rounded out. They are land- 
marks very much as those stone-heap witnesses were 
which the Israelites were accustomed to build on great 
occasions. 

Moses had a creative nature, and he left institutions, 
laws and methods which have made the world wiser and 
better to this day; and John and Paul are the two na- 
tures of the New Testament who, inflamed by Jesus, were 
made to be significantly His great forces. 

John represents the interior and thoughtful and un- 
demonstrative manhood; but, if he be larger and nobler 
in some respects, yet, after all, his revelation to the 
world, as an active force, is not so great as that of Paul. 
John may be, and of himself, perhaps, deeper and 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BSECHER. 41 

higher ; but as a regenerating power, acting upon the 
world, Paul, who was made up of profound personal ex- 
perience, with an intense practical nature, far transcends 
John in his sphere — in the width of it and in its force. 

It is quite noticeable that he who has developed in 
modern times, on religious grounds, the doctrine of the 
Sacredness of the individual man, or the doctrine of the 
mobility of manhood, should himself have been brought 
up, I might almost say, a besotted Pharisee. 

A Pharisee is one who worships instruments. 

Whoever believes that churches, or books, or institu- 
tions, or customs, are more valuable than men is a Phari- 
see ; and, on the other hand, whoever believes that man 
\s transcendently more valuable than his institutions, is a 
Paulist — that is to say, he is a Christman, or Christian. 
For this idea was borrowed by Apostle Paul from Jesus, 
who, never disdaining institutions, never disdaining the 
customs of his country, was adhered to enthusiastically 
by the common people, because he so well represented 
to them the noblest notion of a Jew. He was a servant 
to their sabbaths and synagogues and modes of worship; 
and yet, after all, through His obedience to these things, 
there shone out in him, more and more to the end, the 
conception that the unit of value in the universe is living 
intelligence. 

Man makes society ; man fashions communities ; man 
frames institutions ; but his value does not depend upon 
what he does in the framing of institutions. He is not like 
a stone that goes into a wall, and helps to build a palace 
or a fort, and is good for nothing, except, as the fort or 
the palace is good. He is not like a brick, compressed, 



42 PAUL. 

and made shapely, in order that it may be laid just so with 
line and trowel. He is a living being, in and of himself; 
and all society, all religion, all churches, all institutions, 
come as servants to him, who is the master of them, who 
is the one for whom they were created, and who is inde 
pendent of them — or can be, or ought to be, if he is not. 

It is because these things help a man to measure 
manliness — it is because they bring in their hand that 
which makes him broader and stronger and richer — that 
they are valuable to him ; and the moment they cease 
to do that, he ceases to be amenable to them. 

Just as soon as this large conception of the liberty of 
manhood, of the liberty wherewith Christ makes men 
free, of the liberty which all men enter into when they 
are by the Divine Spirit brought into line, not in their 
lower animal nature, but in their reason, in their moral 
sentiments and in that intuition which comes from the 
higher feelings — just as soon as this large conception of 
liberty takes possession of a man, and he lives according 
to it, he becomes free. 

For whatever things men are accustomed to do be- 
cause the law says they shall, under the influence of this 
new conception they do because they like to do them. 
They act voluntarily. It is pleasanter for them to do 
right than to do wrong — just as it is pleasanter for a mu- 
sician to make chords than to make discords. 

A man may rise to a plane where he speaks the truth 
because it is sweeter to speak the truth than to speak 
falsehood. A man may be honest because he feels that 
honesty is intrinsically better to him than dishonesty. 

And so, in every place, that which men do by law 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 43 

and by rule, they come at last to do by volition. In the 
highest reach of which we have any notion upon Earth, 
men do things involuntarily and automatically. 

Paul was one who cared for nothing so much as for 
that ennobled manhood which is the result of the divine 
influence upon the human soul. 

The inflections in Paul's writings which dissuade from 
every form of evil, and exhort to every form of good, are 
simply marvelous. 

Men have read those writings in order to frame the- 
ologies — and they have had business on hand to do that. 
It has been assumed, generally, that out of the New 
Testament decrees — at least, so far as the whole will of 
God is concerned — you can frame the outlines of the 
divine government, of the divine attributes, and of the 
divine purposes, as well as the outcome of the divine 
economy in time. 

Men have supposed that from the New Testament 
should be extracted these great elements, an4 they have 
been busy in attempting to mark them out ; whereas, 
that for which the New Testament is remarkable — that 
which it has been to a very large extev't recognized and 
employed as being — is that it deals with the formation of 
a beautiful and noble manhood. 

Paul was the apostle of manhood- —manhood in Jesus 
Christ, He being both the model and the inspiration. 

Paul's key-note was this — that manhood resided in 
the moral dispositions of men. 

When everything else had failod, when all knowledge 
had passed away, when the speaking of languages, the 
prophesying, the teaching, the arguing, was done ; when 



44 PAUL. 

■ill i ■■ ' — 

«ven the dim vision ceased ; when we saw face to face, 
and knew as we were known, all the transient being 
swept aside — then three things would still abide, and 
would be positive, certain and universal ; and these three 
things were — what ? 

Reason, genius, imagination ? 

No ; Faith, Hope, Love. 

Those were the three things thai death had no power 
pver, and that would emerge in the radiance of the upper 
sphere, and there exist through all eternity. 

Manhood, with the apostle, consisted in glorious 
t&ftotive dispositions. Everything else that was given to 
man was, in his estimation, an instrument. That is, 
these were the man, and the other things were his hands. 
Paul never despised reasoning. It sometimes seems as 
though he despised it ; but it is only as a man dispises a 
servant who is in his master's chair. He likes the servant 
well enough, but wants him in his own place. 

Paul did not despise reasoning ; and there was no 
more masterly reasoning than his, considering the time 
in which he livsd, considering the purposes which he had 
in view, and considering the instruments which he em- 
ployed. His argumentation is correct if you do not 
press it too narrowly or too closely. It is the vice of 
almost all interpreters of the Bible to attempt to reduce 
to scientific systems ideas that belong to the higher range 
of thought. 

Paul held to two things. You will recollect how, in 
the seventh chapter of Romans, he develops his two- 
nature idea : 

"We know that the law <s spiritual, but I am carnal, 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 45 

■ ■■ — — — ■ — ~-^^.^- 

sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not ; for 
what I would, that I do not ; but what I hate, that I do. 
If, then, I do that which I would not, I consent unto the 
law that it is good. Now, then, it is no more I that do 
it, but sin that dwelleth in me." 

In other words, he said : "I have two natures. I 
have a flesh nature, an outside nature, and that keeps 
sinning ; and then I have another nature — an inside, a 
spiritual nature — and that does not like sinning ; and 
with my heart-power, my conscience-power, my love- 
power, with the power of the divine element that is in 
me, I look and see what this body outside, which clothes 
me, is trying to do. And here are two Fs that are fight- 
ing. The inside I is arrayed against the outside I ; and 
the outside has the advantage." 

Paul was like a child on a very vicious horse, that ran 
away with him, though he did not want to be run away 
with. He held him in with all his might, but he could 
not stop him. 

Paul goes on to say : 

' ' I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth 
no good thing ; for to will is present with me ; but how 
to perform that which is good, I find not. For the good 
that I would, I do not ; but the evil which I would not, 
that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more 
I that do it. " 

That is to say, "My real manhood, the essential I, 
which I regard as Paul — that I which shall not die, and 
which shall appear unto the resurrection, and triumph 
through the eternal — that I does not do the evil. It is 
the base I, it is the animal I, that does it." 



46 PAUL. 

This two-root notion of Paul's is the key-note to his 
philosophy. The one nature is visible and the other is 
invisible ; the one is developed by the material globe and 
its circumstances, and the other is developed by the 
schooling of divine grace. 

Now, if this be manhood ; if this be the point of 
value ; if this be the end to be sought in man's develop- 
ment ; if this spiritual, dispositional, interior manhood 
is the center of his being, then you will begin to wonder 
why it is that he is strong when he is weak. It is when 
the under-Paul is weak that the upper-Paul gets strong. 
It is when the outside-Paul is under reproaches and suf- 
fering that the inside-Paul gets a chance to assert himself. 
It is when the flesh-life, the dropping, the dying part is 
powerless, that the undying part, that part which is of 
God, that part which is in affiliation, in sympathy, and 
in communion with the Divine, and that shall mingle 
therewith without losing its identity, shall triumph. 

As when the keeper is away, and the door is open, 
the prisoner can go out and take the sun and air, but 
when the keeper comes back, the prisoner is sent to his 
dungeon again ; so, when the imprisoning body goes out, 
the enclosed Paul comes forth and rejoices itself in light 
and freedom, but when that body comes back, the tem- 
porarily released Paul is imprisoned once more. 

"Though our outward man perish, yet the inward 
man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, 
which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more 
exceeding and eternal weight of glory ; while we look not 
at the things which are seen, but at the things which are 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHBR. 47 

not seen ; for the things which are seen are temporal ; 
but the things which are not seen are eternal. " 

Real manhood, according to Paul's idea, is developed 
by the battering of the outward or flesh man. He con- 
sidered that whatever diminished the outward man built 
up the inward man. He regarded as strength to his 
disciples whatever thing put them upon the necessity of 
living by their interior ; by their moral intuitions ; by their 
imagination working in connection with religious things. 
Whatever losses of goods, or friends, or affections, or 
successes, or occupations, drove men to the higher realm 
which was in themselves, the world would say were re- 
proaches, misfortunes, infirmities, deprivations ; but God 
would say of them, since he sees what comes of them, 
that they are opportunities ; that they are transfigura- 
tions ; that they are augmentations. Interior manhood 
grows while the outward man diminishes. 

And so Paul's infirmities were such as would generally 
be regarded as misfortunes. It is not pleasant for a man 
to be, as Paul was, of contemptible appearance, and to 
know it. It does not matter whether a man is handsome 
or homely if he thinks he is handsome ; but it makes a 
great deal of difference when a man has intense sensibil- 
ity, to know that he is uncomely. 

Paul's nature was as sensitive as an seolian harp. 
Not a breeze that would not stir an aspen leaf but made 
him quiver. All through his letters we see that every- 
thing he thought of in Heaven, on earth, or in hell, he 
thought of from the standpoint of his own personal feel- 
ing and experience. His writings are one continuous 
•tring of /, /, // me, me, me; my, my, my. There never 



48 PAUL. 

was raised upon the globe another such dome of exquisite 
sensibility as we find in Paul. And yet, his whole being 
was so absolutely given up to others that reading his 
letters through you would not think of his egotism at all. 
He was so perfectly absorbed in his work in behalf of 
his fellows that his thought of himself was but the 
thought of the great central Jesus. 

Now, he was a Jew ; and Jews were built up through 
generations of good stuff. There never was any other 
such stock as the Jewish stock. And, as he said, he was 
a Hebrew of the Hebrews. He was thoroughbred. He 
had received that peculiar education which belonged to 
the Pharisees, putting the greatest value upon rituals, 
ordinances, days, seasons, methods and instruments. A. 
Pharisee of the old form is a man who worships the in- 
strument more than the end. And that was Paul emi- 
nently. Then, he was an intense lover of his country, 
as well as of his kind, and he was vomited out, having 
fallen from the confidence of his people, and been driven 
into the desert of Arabia, a wanderer ; and he felt as if 
he was the offscouring of the earth. John never seems 
to have felt that he was despised ; Peter never spoke of 
himself as suffering any such extremity ; but Paul was 
subjected to trials and hardships on every hand, odium 
was everywhere heaped upon him by his fellow-men ; 
and such was his sensibility of suffering from these 
causes that he declared, all the way through his life, that 
he died deaths daily. And yet, in spite of all that he 
endured of pain and ignominy, he rose up and said, ' ' I 
rejoice." Why did he rejoice ? Let him answer. "Be- 
cause when I am weak I am strong." But if Christ had 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 49 

not found out that inner Paul, by divesting it of the out- 
ward and lower Paul, and letting it out, I never should 
have had such a glorious ideal as I have now, lifted far 
above any ordinary thought of manhood. This Paul it 
was who said, "I rejoice in those infirmities which made 
a man of me in Christ Jesus." 

Paul says, * ' I am a debtor. " 

We begin to draw near to that class of ideas from 
which we are to interpret his meaning. We may im- 
agine in what respect he was a debtor to the Jews ; he 
had received much from them. But what had he re- 
ceived from the Greeks, that he was bound to pay back ? 
Was he a disciple of their philosophy ? He was not. 
Had he received from their bounty in the matter of art ? 
No. One of the most striking things in history is the 
fact that Paul abode in Athens, and wrote about it, with- 
out having any impression made upon his imaginative 
mind, apparently, by its statues, its pictures, or its 
temples. The most gorgeous period of Grecian art 
poured its light on his path, and he never mentioned it. 
The New Testament is as dead to art-beauty as though 
it had been written by a hermit in an Egyptian pyr- 
amid, who had never seen the light of the sun. 
Then, what did he owe to the Greeks ? Not philosophy, 
not art, and certainly not religion, which was feticism. 
What was there that he owed to the Gentiles — the great 
outlying barbaric multitude, as the Greeks would call 
them, or to the great multitude of Gentiles, as the Jews 
would call them ? They had no revelation ; they were 
in darkness ; and he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, 
brought up in such a way that through him have come 



50 PAUL. 

the light of God and Divine influences to the human 
race. He knew his mission. He was not a man who 
was likely not to know it. And what did he pay ? Not 
a debt of literature, nor of art, nor of civil policy. Not 
a debt of pecuniary obligation ; not any ordinary debt. 
He had nothing from all these outside sources. On the 
other hand, he was perpetually laying others under obli- 
gation by enlarging their horizon ; by giving them nobler 
conceptions of manhood ; by attempting to bring out 
and unfold higher and better elements of humanity ; by 
changing the prevailing ideas of civility ; by giving a new 
soul to law, and a new heart to national life. He was 
pouring out the spirit of civilization, and laying the 
foundation of after excellence. 

What debt could he owe ? And yet said he, "I am 
debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians, both 
to the wise and to the unwise." What could that debt 
be ? Not interchange of values, as I have already in- 
timated. It must have lain wholly in a condition of 
Want which, to his moral consciousness, existed outside 
of himself, and his own conscious fullness of supply. 
The whole barbaric world was without the true knowl- 
edge of God ; he had that knowledge ; and he owed it to 
every man who had it not. And the civilized world was, 
in these respects, without the true inspiration. 

Paul had that inspiration ; and he owed it to them, 
simply because they did not have it ; and his debt to 
them was founded on this law of benevolence of which 
I have been speaking, which is to supersede selfishness, 
and according to which those who have are indebted to 
those who have not, the world over. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 51 

Secondly, the introduction of the malign element as a 
moral force, by which it has been attempted to extend 
Christianity, has been another capital offense and an- 
other reason why so little progress has been made in 
spreading the Gospel. When Paul, in a reminiscence of 
his labor among the Corinthians, gives some account of 
himself, he speaks as if he had paused on going into 
Corinth. 

Naturally he must have done so ; he must have said 
to himself, "Here am I, a wandering Jew, going to the 
most dissolute, the richest and the most elegant city of 
Greece ; a city, world-renowned for pleasure ; a city full 
of sophists, full of philosophers, full of men of science 
and literature ; and now, how shall I start this new 
religion there ? " 

"Well, I determined," said he, "not to know any- 
thing among you as a source of power except Christ, — 
and Him crucified. I determined to disclose to you a 
moral phenomenon — namely, that the innate disposition 
of God is manifested ki this : that He sent down into 
the world His Son, who took upon Himself the human 
form, and subjected Himself to human law, and was 
willing to suffer, and to suffer in the lowest and most 
ignominious way, for the sake of giving his life a ransom 
for many. I determined to rely, for the secret of my 
power, upon this fact and the moral qualities which 
grow out of it, as naturally related to human sensibility." 

The writings of the apostle are full of pathos and 
full of earnestness, and they recognize, in the most 
eminent degree, the conflicts of life ; but the very spirit 



52 PAUL. 

of hope and joy pervades them. They always move 
with the step of victory. 

There is nowhere else, in an equal compass, such ex- 
altation or exultation, I think, as is to be found in the 
writings of the apostles, and pre-eminently in those of 
Paul, the sufferer and the rejoicer. I know not where 
you will find, if you will come into the full spirit of it, 
a more magnificent instance of it than that which is 
recorded in the closing words of the eighth of Romans, 
where he has been speaking of the sufferings of the 
whole world ; where he looks upon the creature delivered 
from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty 
of the children of God, and says, "The whole creation 
is going on still groaning, and it is still travailing in 
pain." And then, after reasoning on all the light and 
darkness in which the world moves, he says : 

"What shall we say, then, to these things? If God 
be for us, who can be against us ? He that spared not 
His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall 
He not with Him also freely give us all things. Who 
shall lay anything to the charge of God s elect ? It is 
God that justifieth. Who is he that condemeth ? It is 
Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is 
even at the right hand of God, who also maketh inter- 
cession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of 
Christ ? " 

And now look at this magnificent defiance with which 
he throws down the gauntlet to every conceivable form 
of earthly misfortune : 

"Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or 
famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword ? As it is written, 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHE* S3 

1 ' For thy sake we are killed all the day long , we a*% ac- 
counted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, [and where is 
there such another magnificent burst of joy and cheer as 
this ?] in all these things, [in tribulation, and distress, and 
persecution, and famine, and nakedness, and peril, and 
sword] we are more than conquerors through Him that 
loved us. For I am persuaded [and now his thought 
overleaps the bounds of time and earth, and takes in the 
universe] that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor 
principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things 
to come, nor heighth, nor depth, nor any other creature, 
shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which 
is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. " 

Now, I ask you whether the whole view of the Chris- 
tian religion, as it is laid down in the New Testament, is 
not one of joyfulness — whether that is not the pre-emi- 
nent element, the genius of it. I ask you whether the 
religious life which has been handed down to us from the 
church of the mediaeval ages is not, after all, so stained 
through with a sense of melancholy and restriction and 
loss and narrowness and suffering, that the popular im- 
pression is, that religion, if not morose, is yet moody and 
melancholy, sad and sorrowful ; that its joys lie in the 
things that are to be in the life which is to come, and 
not in the thing itself. I ask you whether the ascetic 
view has not been preached, and is not still preached, 
uuconsciously, by men who disown it in terms, and who 
yet make representations of great doctrines in such a way 
as to impress the minds of their fellow-men with the 
conviction that to do the things that are noblest, best, 
divinest, in accordance with the highest law of true 



54 PAUL. 

manhood, requires great suffering; and that it requires a 
special dispensation of grace to enable men to do those 
things, because they are not only so hard, but so painful 
in the doing. 

We are not to understand, from the teaching of the 
apostle, that human wisdom or philosophy is to be de- 
spised. In the lower realms of life, not only is it indis- 
pensable, but it is noble. None exercise it with greater 
judgment than the apostle himself did; and there is 
much of the truth that belongs to the material creation. 
There are large realms of truth that belong to the lower 
forms of man's own mind and nature, which are to be 
discovered by the proper use of the reason, acting under 
conditions of philosophy; and although this may have 
carried with it a certain sort of criticism, directly or in- 
directly, of the Grecian schemes of philosophy, yet there 
was in them a great power of usefulness. 

Nothing can reach down through thousands of years, 
holding the thoughts of men in delightful thrall, which is 
altogether inapt or foolish, and yet, although a spade is 
one of the best things a gardener can have, it would be 
a very poor thing for a mother to try to feed her babe 
with. Although the reason may be admirable, and the 
uses of it noble, in the lower forms, yet there are certain 
realms of truth, there are certain sorts of knowledge, for 
which the reason is not adapted. 

It is not, then, to be understood that the Apostle 
Paul derided intellection, or systems of philosophy, but 
that he had a higher thought in his mind than the thought 
of these things. 

So, again, it is not to be supposed that the Apostle 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 55 

Paul scoffed at the skillful presentation of truths to men, 
or a wise approach with knowledge to men's minds ; for 
he himself was a pattern. No more adroit man was ever 
known. No man, standing among Pharisees, or Saddu- 
cees, or any others, recognized more than he the neces- 
sity of adapting his teaching to those whom he taught, 
and to the circumstances in which he taught. 

When, therefore, he says that he did not come with 
the wisdom of words, it is not to be understood as being 
a general fling at rhetorical or oratorical modes of hand- 
ling the truth ; it is to be understood, rather, as implying 
that there are some things which the most skillful oratory 
cannot touch ; that there are deeper truths, higher realms, 
than any which can be reached by rhetoric. 

Neither did he invalidate in this declaration, those 
views and representations of God which were already 
familiar to the Jews, and which pervade the Old Testa- 
ment. 

The glory of God as Creator ; his sovereignty as 
Governor ; his providence as Administrator — these in 
various ways he often recognized ; but there is something 
more than these in the divine nature. 

There is something more than a dynastic God ; some- 
thing more than a rational God ; something more than a 
God of the heaven and of the earth, creating material 
forms, and administering an economy of laws. 

There was something transcendently more noble, 
deeper, higher, wider, and more influential than the cur- 
rent views of the divine nature. 

That which was built up, and that which was con- 
veyed to the minds of men by material figures drawn 



56 PAUL. 

from the works of creation, from the procession of armies, 
from the power of the mightiest sovereigns, from those 
things which men most enjoy and most admire in these 
elements in their own appropriate sphere — this was wise 
and helpful in leading men's thoughts up to a considera- 
tion of the true God ; but then, when one had approached 
to the central Sovereign of the universe, there was a dis- 
position as well as a government. 

There was a God in his relations to the great crea- 
tion ; but there was a God in his relation to his own 
children. 

A magistrate is allowed to have no feelings, and yet 
behind all magistracy is the father, the husband, and the 
friend ; so behind and within the sovereignty of God, there 
was the personal and dispositional element of the divine 
nature ; and it was this that the apostle caught. 

Perhaps more certain, more anxiously, and more 
urgently than any other one, does he express this interior 
and personal disposition of God, as made manifest in the 
Lord Jesus Christ ; and it is this that gives us some in- 
sight or hint as to the singular use of language which he 
employs : 

"Christ sent me not to baptise, but to preach the 
gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ 
should be made of none effect. For the preaching of 
the cross [why did he not say the preaching of Christ ? 
He, as it were, changed the name. Why, instead of 
using that glorious Name that is above every name, 
should he have said, ' The preaching of the cross ' — not, 
The preaching of Christ — not, The preaching of that 
gospel system, that system of good news that has irradi- 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 57 

ated the world, and filled the world with joy ? Why 
should he have said, The preaching of the cross — that 
bloody and hateful instrument of despotism and cruelty ?] 
is to them that perish foolishness [Yes, and it is to this 
day) ; but unto us which are saved it is the power of 
God. " 

What ! The cross the power of God ? In the pas- 
sage which I read, Paul says : 

V I determined not to know anything among you save 
Jesus Christ and Him crucified." 

In other words, he determined not to know Jesus 
Christ as he walked in Galilee ; as he led captive the 
throngs of the people ; as he stood in the temple, meet- 
ing and matching his adversaries, and unfolding, serenely, 
and with transcendent power, the secrets of the spirit 
land ; or as he was in his ascension at the right hand of 
God. He determined not to know Christ efflorescent, 
victorious, attractive, beautiful, winning. He determined 
not to know even Jesus Christ, when he came among the 
Corinthians, except as the wounded, the bruised, the 
crucified. 

When, therefore, Paul came preaching a divine 
Saviour, how natural it would have been for him to slur 
over these things which were offensive to his hearers in 
regard to that Saviour, only making conspicuous such 
features of Him and of His doctrine as were agreeable to 
them ; but no, he said, ■ ' I determined not to know any- 
thing among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. " 

He determined not to know even the Saviour, except 
as the crucified One. 

He determined to preach among those proud, beauty- 



58 PAUL. 

loving, effeminate, sensitive Greeks, the most odious 
thing that could be preached — namely, a malefactor ; a 
man so weak that the Roman government could easily 
lay the cross upon him ; a man whom his own country- 
men despised and crucified. 

Such was his text, such was his theme ; and he went 
to this proud city of Corinth, and determined to preach 
this truth in its most palpable form, and to know nothing 
but that. 

Surely, he might well say that the wisdom of this 
world was not with him ; that he was not wise according 
to the pattern of this world ; that he did not depend upon 
the power of words, or the skillful arrangement of ap- 
peals ; that these would not help him under the circum- 
stances. 

What was there that helped him ? 

He had advanced a new conception of the divine 
nature, which was foolishness to them who only heard it 
by the outward ear, while to those who really got it into 
their mind, and understood what it was, and felt the 
transcendent beauty of it, and entered into the interior 
conception of that which represented the constituent 
elements of the divine nature, it was the wisdom of God 
and the power of God unto salvation. 

And what was this cross, what was this suffering, 
what was this broken Saviour, but the revelation of God 
through Him who thought it was not robbery to be equal 
with God, and made Himself of no reputation, and took 
upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the 
likeness of men, and, being found in fashion as a man, 



EIBEE <5gABACftR5:=HENRY WARD BEECHER. 59 

humbled himself, and became obedient unto death — the 
death of the cross ? 

Of all the writers whose words are recorded in the 
Bible, there was no one whose spirit so perfectly ac- 
corded, on the whole, with the modern spirit, and the 
spirit which prevails in America, as Paul's. 

There was no one who had such a profound sense ol 
individualism, of the right of the individual, or of the 
object of religion — namely, to build up in each particular 
person a manhood that should be large, strong, rich, and 
perfectly free. 

There was no one ot them that spoke so much about 
liberty — a sound, peculiarly pleasant to our ears — as the 
Apostle Paul ; and he declares that we are called to it ; 
that it is the very thing in religion to which we are called. 
Now, there is an apprehension, very wide-spread — and 
we can see how reasonably it has sprung up — that re- 
ligion, so far from making men free, hampers them, 
restricts them, ties them up, burdens them ; and there is 
among men a universal impression, when life is strong in 
young veins, and the impulse to do just as they wish to 
is powerful, that they do not want to be religious. The 
fact is that they want to enjoy themselves a little while. 

"I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So 
then with the mind I myself serve the law of God ; but 
with the flesh the law of sin. There is, therefore, now 
no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who 
walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. " — Rom. vii., 
S$, and viii., 1. 

In this memorable passage of experience, there is the 



60 PAUL. 

*■ .I. , , — .<*.■■..■. . . 

recognition that men are both sinful and imperfect. 

They are constitutionally imperfect. Imperfection is 
the universal necessity. It is the divinely created con- 
dition under which humanity comes into this life. 

Sinfulness springs in a degree from it, differing simply 
in this : that when men fail in the best things, or fail to 
live according to the laws prescribed for them, through 
ignorance, or through immature power, that is imperfec- 
tion; but when they have the power to conform to any 
rule of conduct, and deliberately violate that rule, it is 
sinfulness . 

The difference between imperfection and sinfulness 
is not that one is a violation of law and the other is not, 
but that one is a violation of law from weakness, and the 
other is a violation of law intentionally, or with purpose 
— at any rate, with one's own permission. 

It is taught in these memorable chapters of Romans, 
that in those who seek to live right there is a prolonged 
and painful struggle. Especially was this true under the 
twilight dispensation of the Jews. 

The struggle was mainly between men and matter — 
between the spirit and the flesh. If we were to drop 
Paul's nomenclature and adopt the most modern, we 
should at once say that the struggle was between the 
bodily appetites and inclinations and the higher senti- 
ments — the reasoning faculties, the moral sense, the per- 
ception of that which is fit and beautiful. 

It was taught that knowledge and conscience only 
made matters worse. 

Paul gives an account, doubtless, of his own internal 
experience ; and, without making it exclusively personal, 




Saul's Conversion. 
From the Painting by Gustave Dore 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 61 

he does not, on the other hand, avowedly make it general. 
In the seventh of Romaus he describes the condition of 
a noble nature, a man of high character, seeking to reach 
nobility, baffled and brought into a state of painful self- 
condemnation by the fact that he reached a point short 
of his own ideal. 

He was held up by a ritual law whose drift, whose 
tendency was meant to be spiritual ; and to cultivate the 
higher instincts and sentiments of his nature, but the 
actual operation of which was not such. 

It rather tended to cultivate in him a sense of right 
just acute enough to bring him into a state of self-con- 
demnation — for it is true that the more we rise into a 
sense of integrity the more rigorous our idea of integrity 
becomes. 

The more men love truth the more sharp is the 
requisition which they lay upon themselves in the matter 
of veracity. Honor begets a higher sentiment of honor. 
Goodness rises its own standard. 

So, in the particular experience which I read to you 
in the seventh of Romans, Paul says that the coming in 
of moral measurement, the introduction of the law, in- 
stead of making him better, made him worse ; that is, it 
revealed to him how bad he was, how weak, how im- 
perfect, and how sinful. Before the commandment came 
he felt that he was all right enough ; but when the com- 
mandment came he felt that he was all wrong. 

A dozen rough miners go into a camp out in Cali- 
fornia, and they grow regularly coarser and coarser. 
They are at home as if they were in a pig-stye. Now, 
the introduction of a woman produces a revolution 



63 PAUL. 

among them. The sister or the wife of one of them 
goes out, bearing her refinement ; and in one single day 
every man is convicted of his coarseness and vulgarity, 
and wants to "wash and fix up " ; and is to-day uneasy 
in that in which yesterday he was at perfect ease ; he is 
convicted of his essential lowness. 

Where there is no ideal standard and no exemplar, 
men gradually deteriorate, and become contented with 
their low condition ; but if you bring in a higher standard 
it incites thought and motive to higher character ; and, 
recognizing this standard, they become discontented, 
and seek to rise to a higher level. 

Finally, Paul declares that relief came to him from 
Jesus Christ. He gives a most affecting description of 
the moral struggles which he went through, and which 
more or less epitomize what every right-minded man has 
felt in himself — the general wish to do right, and the con- 
tinual failure in that particular. The general wish and 
will was present with him, but how to perform he knew 
not. 

Let any man rise in the morning, and say. * ' Now, 
to-day I wish to be considerate to others ; " he is doing 
well to wish and to say it, but how to perform he does 
not know ; for, when the sun goes down, he is satisfied 
that he has acted harshly and hardly, here and there, 
and everywhere. 

Set any standard higher than that which prevails in 
the average of society for yourself, and you will, perhaps, 
in your better moments, with your conscience and your 
higher nature, conform to it ; but when you go into the 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHBR. 63 

practical jarring of life you will in conduct perpetually 
fall below it. 

Now, at that point, you have the consciousness and 
the testimony of reason and the moral sense that you 
mean the best things ; but you have the testimony of ex- 
perience that you do not do the best things ; and it is 
just where these two things come together like saw-teeth 
that men are gashed with pain and suffering — and that 
in the proportion in which they are morally sensitive. It 
was just at this point that Paul was when he said : 

"I find a law, that, when I would do good, evil is 
present with me. [I meant to be benevolent all day to- 
day, but I have been proud and selfish. I meant to be 
kind and gentle. I meant that my temper should not 
get dominion over me ; but it has flashed out here and 
there all the time. This law is imperative in me ; it 
acts every day.] I delight in the law of God, after the 
inward man [in my thoughts, in my calm moments, in 
my reflective hours. I rejoice in everything that is manly, 
and pure, and generous, and just ; I have inward testi- 
mony of that ; it is a fact as clear as any other ; and it is 
no less clear that when I go out into the battle of life I 
come short perpetually in my conduct ] ; but then I see 
another law [I am under two laws], in my members, 
warring against this law of my mind, and bringing me 
into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 
Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from 
the body of this death ? " 

After Paul had wrought more than forty years, and 
when he had come to the position in which he was to be 
delivered only by the executioner, in the very last letter, 



64 PAUL. 

I think, that he ever wrote, in a Roman prison and wait- 
ing for his release and his crown, he said : 

* ' Not as though I had already attained, either, were 
already perfect ; but I follow after [I keep at it], if that 
I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended 
of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have 
apprehended ; but this one thing I do, forgetting those 
things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those 
things which are before, I press forward toward the mark 
for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." 

Oh, poor Paul ! If he had lived in our day, we could 
have sent to him folks who would have shown him how 
he might be perfect. But as it was, he was conscious of 
the inharmony which existed between the mind and the 
flesh — between himself and the world. His ideal of 
what it was to be a perfect man in Christ Jesus had grown 
so much faster than the realization of such attainment, 
that when, at the very end of his career, he looked upon 
himself, he was further from having realized manhood 
than at the beginning — and that, I take it, is the experi- 
ence of every large-minded and intelligent Christian. 

So, when the apostle to the Gentiles went forth preach- 
ing the great substantial truths of Christ, you will dis- 
cern very clearly that when he preached to the Jews he 
adapted himself to them, through figures, through lan- 
guage, through illustrations, through manners and cus- 
toms which they understood ; but when he went to Athens 
he conformed his mode of address to the intellectual 
habits and perceptions of the Greeks. 

"Yea, so have I st rived to preach the Gospel, and 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 65 

where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another 
man's foundation." — Rom. xv. 20. 

The converse is this : 

4 ' According to the grace of God which is given unto 
me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, 
and another buildeth thereon." 

You will remember when Paul was converted he stood 
very high among his own people as a man eminent both 
in knowledge and in executive talent. He evidently took 
the lead in putting down a pestilent heresy that his 
countrymen thought had sprung up among them ; and he 
pursued the methods which have been very widely pursued 
since the world began in putting down heresies — that is 
differences of belief. Instead of using argument, he tried 
the sword, prisons, stones, anything that would make an 
impression ; and it was when he was on one of his errands 
of convincing the world that Christianity was not true, 
that he was himself stricken down mid-way, and brought 
to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. His 
whole career before and his whole life development after- 
ward show us that one very strong element — the axis, as 
we might almost call it, of Paul's character - was his 
pride. 

He was a man of great firmness, with a temperament 
of the utmost fervor, and with fervent affections, whicb 
had been held in check up to this time. 

One would suppose that a man of such a nature, 
being converted, would have turned upon his heel, and 
gone to Jerusalem, and put himself at the head of the 
Christian movement. He was a bold man, fearing noth- 
ing, and apparently all the opportunities (<a a man of his 



66 PAUL. 

executive energy would open in the neighborhood of the 
mother church, or the mother assemblies, in Jerusalem. 

But instead of going there, after spending some days 
in Damascus, and preaching in that place until the Jews 
of Damascus, enraged at his apostasy, as they would call 
it, attempted his life, he secretly went to Arabia, return- 
ing thence to Damascus. How soon he returned we do 
not know, but he spent the first three years of his minis- 
try somewhere in Syria and Arabia. 

Of these first three years we have absolutely no ac- 
count. He gives a simple statement of the time in the 
first of Galatians. 

Then he went to Jerusalem ; but he stayed there only 
a fortnight, and saw none of the apostles except James, 
who seems to have been the chief. After that he departed 
and went into Asia Minor. 

For fourteen years he labored without going back to 
Jerusalem at all. Afterward, when he went back, it was 
for a very brief stay ; and he declares that he preached 
the Gospel in places where nobody had been before him, 
seeking them out of preference. 

He was not after a settlement. He was not in search 
of a parish or a good salary. He was not trying to find 
rich synagogues of Jews who were ready to be converted. 
He went nowhere in the footprints of men who had gone 
first and taken the brunt of opposition and persecution. 
He went to the Gentile world. He was proud to go 
where foundations had not been laid, and to lay founda- 
tions that other men might build on them — as they did. 
This was the AjtfrtW *wl'« feeling in regard to his labor; 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 67 

li I will take foundation-work. Let other men have the 
building upon that." 

What, then, did Paul say that he did ? 

"Yea, so have I strived to preach the Gospel, not 
where Christ was named, lest I should build upon an- 
other man's foundation." 

He does not boast. It is simply an implication. " I 
went into Arabia," he says ; " I labored three years where 
there was no apostle. I merely looked in at Jerusalem. 
I took my way northward into Asia Minor. I worked 
along the Uxine Sea, all through that mountainous and 
unsearched region where there had been no predecessor. 
There I was the first to preach, and there I took the 
brunt of opposition, or of indifference, which is worse 
than opposition. I not only took it, but I chose it. I 
strove for it. " 

Yea, clear around to Illyricum — that is, the western 
part of Austria — he preached. He preached in Achaia, 
in Greece, in Macedonia, in all those colonies on the 
north, clear up to Austria, as it is now, and down to Italy 
and Rome. In all that country he says that he was the 
pioneer, taking the first and hardest work. 

Says he : * ' I strove to do it. I would not let any- 
body get ahead of me. It was my ambition, and I did 
it that I might not build where anybody else had built, 
but that I might lay foundations on which others should 
build." 

What were the motives that actuated him ? That is 
a very important question. In the first place, here is 
what you may call Christian pride. 

Paul never for a moment forgot that he had been a 



68 PAUL. 

persecutor ; but he declared that he was not one whit 
behind the chiefest of the apostles. 

When men undertook to invalidate his teachings, and 
said to him, ' ' You are only a bastard apostle, you did 
not belong to the original twelve," he rose up and 
asserted his apostolicity, and said, ' ' The Gospel I did 
not receive of men. It was not James that told me of 
this Gospel, nor Peter. Of God I received it" — alluding 
to his conversion on the road to Damascus. He vindi- 
cated his equality with the apostolic band — not for the 
sake of praise and glory, but because he would not have 
his message discredited. Not for his own sake, but for 
the sake of the message, he declared that he was fully 
the equal of any of the apostles. His temperament was 
such as would make him feel quite as much as he was. 

So he says : "I am not behind any man. I am a 
match for anybody. I am a full-grown man. I am a 
Jew." 

When a man wants to praise himself excessively, he 
tells what country he came from. An Englishman says, 
' ' I am an Englishman. " ' ' Thank God, " says his neigh- 
bor over the channel, " I am a real full-blooded French- 
man." We say, wagging our heads at cathedrals, and 
palaces, and towers, "Thank God, I am an American." 
And we say, or shall, on the approaching 22nd, " Thank 
God, we are Yankees." 

So every man mentions his nationality as though that 
conveyed the highest conception of manhood. And so 
Paul said, " I am a Jew." He felt the dignity of being 
a Jew — and he had a right to ; for there is no nobler 
stock, and there never was a grander mission, than that 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 69 

which God gave to the Jew. We that revile the Jews 
are dividing among ourselves the ideas and legacies 
which were wrought out by their prophets and teachers ; 
and Paul had a right to say, standing as he did midst 
ancient civilization, * ' I am a Jew, and I am not a whit 
beneath any of the apostles." 

What, then, is it becoming in a man to do ? He 
ought to do work that nobody else can do as well as he. 
A man ought to say, "It is my place to do the things 
that are the hardest, and that men take to the least 
naturally, and are the most inclined to shirk. My busi- 
ness is to work where nobody else will work." 

Such should be the spirit of him who feels himself to 
be a man. It is quite in keeping with the spirit which 
our Master urged when he said, " He that would be chief, 
let him be a servant ; he that would be greatest must be 
content to be among the least." 

Thousands and thousands of men are looking about 
for places. Thousands and thousands of men want 
something to do. Oh ! that the spirit of Paul were 
among young scholars, young preachers, young opera- 
tives. Then they would say, not, ' ' Who will show me 
a good parish ? " not, ' ' Who will show me a remunerative 
place ? " not, ' ' Who will show me where honor is 
to be obtained ? " not, ' ' Who will put me, the Lord's 
candle, in a golden candlestick ? " but, " Where is there 
a place that needs some one to fill it, and that other men 
do not want to go to ? That is the place for me, because 
I am a man, and a Christian man." 

Such is the ideal of pride. It is not saying, " Bring 
lienor to me ; bring to me praise ; bring to me the fat of 



70 PAUL. 

*he land ; bring to me all delicacies ; I am the great man 
whom all things are to serve." That is infidel pride. That 
is devilish pride. 

But if pride says : " I am wise, and I ought to go to 
the ignorant, because the darkest place needs the greatest 
light ; I am strong, and ought to do the hardest things, 
because the weakest folks can do the least ; I am refined, 
and ought to go where there is a lack of refinement, be- 
cause rudeness needs the most refining," then it is true 
pride. 

If a man says, * ' By as much as I am better than other 
people I ought to serve them," then he is proud in the 
right direction. People preach against pride. They do 
not see that they should put pride to such service as this. 
It is very easy for me to denounce pride in this pulpit ; it 
is very easy for me to stand here and talk about the 
dangers of pride ; but I tell you, the way to deal with 
pride is to set it to work. 

Thousands of men have been destroyed for want of 
pride, where one has been destroyed by excessive pride. 
Pride is a glorious thing, provided it is disciplined, and 
employed according to the canon of Christ, and not ac- 
cording to the tendency of wild nature. 

Then Paul had a feeling that he never got over, thank 
God, to the end of his life, proud as he was with Chris- 
tian pride. He always carried with him one wound 
which would not heal. "I persecuted the church," he 
said. He never could get it out of his mind that he, 
"the least of the apastles- " "persecuted the Church of 
God.^ 

You will say that it was & sentimental thing. It waf 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 71 

sentimental. He did not look at it the way of the world. 
Most persons would have said, ' ' Paul, don't feel so bad 
about this matter ; you went according to the ideas of 
your age ; you followed your natural instincts ; you made 
a mistake, to be sure ; but all you had to do was to turn 
on yonr heel, when you saw your mistake, and quit it. " 
That, however, did not satisfy him. 

Oh, to have persecuted Jesus ! The more he thought 
of it, the worse he felt. The more he knew of Christ, 
the more he understood his relations to the world and his 
love to the dying creatures of his kind, the more awful 
it seemed that he ever lifted his hand against the Saviour, 
and that he ever put to death one that believed on him. 
It was a perpetual sorrow to him. He knew that it did 
not stand against him ; but he was a man of such a gen- 
erous nature that he never could forget it ; and he, as it 
were, put upon himself tasks which no other man would 
take by way of making amends for that wrong which he 
had committed. 

He said: "It is fit that I, who smote the infant 
church, should go among those who never knew Christ, 
and bear the brunt of advancing his kingdom all over the 
world." 

That is the kind of penance which one may well glory 
in. The humility of his fall was as magnificent as his 
pride. 

Then there was his feeling of love to Christ — for 
wherever he was, the main conception of Paul's life was 
heroic, enthusiastic, and, if you please, fanatical love of 
the Lord Jesus Christ. It filled his whole soul. It was 
the fountain which could not be restrained, but which 



72 PAUL. 

gushed out in every direct and indirect way And he 
felt, ' ' There is nothing that love cannot do. " 

Is there anything that love cannot do ? Oh, how 
many times, when their boys were suffering of fever in 
the hospital, or of wounds in the battle-field, did mothers, 
feeble, and with scanty means, go on foot, threading their 
way through state after state, through the wilderness, 
through cold, through the heat, through hunger and 
through thirst, to find out those boys ! And all the way 
they counted not their own suffering anything. 

By day and by night, wherever they were, and 
under all circumstances, they were supported by the 
thought, " All this I do for the love that I bear for that 
boy. " And love would do an hundred times more if it 
were necessary. It has no language, and therefore it 
seeks by service to heap up some outward sign or token 
of what it is, and what it would do. The deeper the love, 
the more it glories in some form of expression that im- 
plies sacrifice, endurance, suffering. 

1 ' God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while 
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. " 

These are magnificent, ultimate presentations of that 
which we see all about us. How love is crippled by lan- 
guage ! How small it feels itself to appear in compari- 
son with its intent ! How poor it is for this world's use ! 
How it seeks, therefore, some mode of making itself 
known ! 

And to Paul it was not enough to sing, or pray, or 
praise. "O," he said, "that I might do something to 
signify how I love him that loved me ! What am I that 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. ?3 

Jesus did not make me ? What is there noble in me that 
is not of him ? Every worthy thought or feeling that I 
have is inspired by him ! It is not to man's praise that 
I am what I am, but to the glory of Him that, loving 
me, redeemed me with his precious love." 

And so Paul said : ' ' Give me the hardest work ; for 
the hardest work will show the greatest love. " When he 
had wrought everywhere, through all wildernesses, and 
all foreign cities — in the midst of perils of false brethren 
and riotous heathen mobs, on the sea and on the land, 
clear down to the end, and lay in the prison at Rome, 
chained to a soldier, he said, " Let no man henceforth 
disturb me." When he was a prisoner, waiting his sum- 
mons, he had this one feeling : 

1 ' I have fought the good fight, I have finished my 
course, I have kept the faith ; henceforth there is laid up 
for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the 
righteous Judge, shall give me. " 

It was Christ that occupied his mind to the last. 

Besides that, there was one other thing. As out of 
the love of Christ comes the love of men, so Paul felt 
that in doing foundation work he was making a contribu- 
tion to the happiness of his kind. This he intimates in 
the first of Corinthians, the third chapter, and the tenth 
verse : 

1 « According to the grace of God which is given unto 
me, as a wise master-builder, I have laid the foundation, 
and another buildeth thereon." 

Everywhere he repeatedly speaks of sowing and not 
reaping, that others may reap what he has sown. He 



74 PAUL. 

changes the figure from the agricultural to the archi- 
tectural one. 

This conception, that he was making the way easier 
for somebody else ; that he was bearing pain that others 
might not have pain to bear ; that he was going through 
personal suffering — hunger and thirst and sickness — that 
others might come, and in peace and comfort occupy 
fields which had been laid open to them — that it was 
that marked the truest element in the character of this 
true man. 

I see that Renan and others undervalue Paul. I hear 
him scoffed at, or spoken disparagingly of, in one way or 
another ; but to my mind there never lived upon the earth 
more than two or three men. 

One was Moses, and one was Paul. 

Perhaps there have been one or two more ; but two 
at least, of the four or five great natures of the world, 
have been Jews. Men of such magnificent zeal, of such 
glorious self-sacrifice, and of such long-continued service 
(thirty-one years there were of his ministry) — such men 
do not come in every age ; and when they do come in any 
age there are very few that know how to appreciate them. 
Paul stood head and shoulders above every other man. 
There never has been a greater than he. He lived and 
died for the love of Christ, and for the love of mankind. 

Here to-day, Paul r that noblest of gentlemen that 
ever lived, who touched the heights and depths and 
lengths and breadths of every conceivable delicacy of 
feeling and courtesy of affection that was inspired by the 
love of Christ, walks and speaks. Here is a retiring 
place for sorrow that would weep unseen. Here are the 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 75 

tonics for weakness. Here are the glasses through which 
faith may look and discern invisible things. 

Ye mourners, ye desolate, ye orphans, ye oppressed, 
ye men broken in hope, ye bankrupts, too old to begin 
again, yet misrepresented and persecuted and afflicted, 
ye great army of suffering humanity, if ye have forgotten 
the word of God, and turned aside into the desert and 
arid ways of this world, come back to your father's God* 
Come back to the Book in which you were instructed 
when you were children. And forget not from whom 
you received those things. Your fathers — where are they ? 
Is your life leading you to join them in the company o^ 
the just made perfect ? 

I present this Book to you, not because I am a minis< j 
ter, but because I am a man. I present it to you not by 
the force of any ingenious plea, but because I have known 
human life. When the waves have been huge, and the 
night has been dark, there has been a Jesus revealed here 
to me, walking in the night on the sea, and giving calm 
amid the thunder of the waves and the roar of the 
tempest. 

Are there those who have suffered the exquisite 
pangs of mortification ? There is balm for them. Are 
there those who, with unutterable anguish, have overhung 
their children dying ? There is comfort for such. Are 
there those whose heaven has been black, and whose 
hope has departed, and who have thought themselves 
doomed to destruction ? I tell you, there is a daylight 
even for such. 

I bring to you this Book that has been my counsellor, 
my comfort, and my food. It is nnspeakably dear to me, 



76 PAUL. 

M « ' I I i i 

from all the associations of my life. I rejoice in it be- 
cause my father walked through it, as his father walked 
through it, and men walked through it to remote genera- 
tions. It is a precious Book, not because poems say so, 
but because my soul says so ; and I could present you no 
better gift for the holidays than this Book, with a spirit 
to live in the innermost recesses of your heart, not in 
bondage to the letter, not in fear of the text, but in 
sympathy with the teaching, and to make it the man of 
your counsel, your guide, a lamp shedding light upon 
your path. Thus let it become a most precious blessing 
to the head and heart of every one of you. 

Will you not go home to-night and look up your old 
Bible ? Oh, is there a novel which comes out that has 
such novelty as the Bible would have to some of you if 
you were to read it ? Will you not go home and open 
it ? You may find inscribed in it your own name, or 
your fathers, or your mothor's. Perhaps you will find 
that it has been read more in some places than in others. 
Will you not look along the edge and see where it has 
been thumbed and turned, and where it was, that those 
who gave you this precious legacy dwelt most frequently ? 
Their feet beat paths, as it were, along the recesses of 
the Word of God. Will you not look at the marks made 
by your own hand, and remember when you made them ? 
Will you not revive somethiug of your own life by restor- 
ing to its place and to its honored functions this long- 
neglected Word of God ? For your own sake, and, if 
you are parents, for the sake of your children, and for 
Christ's sake, be ye rich in the Word of God. 

The righteousness that the apostle Paul gloried in and 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 77 

sought is a righteousness of truth, of justice, of benevol 
ence, of personal purity, of infinite kindness, of lenity, 
of meekness, of humility, of superior manhood— which 
he had, for he was one of the noblest men that ever trod 
the path of heroes, which is a path of thorns. 

How came Paul by that righteousness which he had ? 
He says, " I came by it through the sight of Jesus — that 
is, the inward sight, which was revealed by the Spirit 
to me. My own righteousness was as filthy rags — that 
winch before I thought of and prided myself on." 

K^ar, how he speaks of it : ' * I had everything to be 
proud of. I came from the best nation." 

The best nation on earth to you is the one in which 
you were born. So Paul boasts of being of the stock of 
Israel. He also boasts of being of the tribe of Benjamin. 
Every man thinks that the town where he was born is 
the best town ; and so Paul thought the tribe to which he 
belonged was the best tribe. He boasts of being a 
Hebrew of the Hebrews. He was circumcised the eighth 
day. He was of the stock of Israel and of the tribe of 
Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. 

And Paul says : ' * As touching the law, I was a 
Pharisee. " But he was not a tame sort of Pharisee — 
no, no, he was a man intensely in earnest. He says, 
" Concerning zeal, persecuting the church." I believed 
that I was doing right, I believed that other people ought 
to do the same thing that I did, and I was not only will- 
ing to be what I was, but I was willing to compel other 
people to be it too. ' 

He goes on to say : i ' Touching the righteousness 
which was in the law, I was blameless." As regards tht 



7S PAUL. 

cb«*iging of garments, I was correct. I knew how to 
cleanse myself after touching a dead body. As to the 
wearing of phylacteries and dresses I was without fault. 
Respecting all these external peculiarities I was perfect. 
"But," he says, "after I had seen Christ, after I had 
come to a sense of what a noble character was, after 
there haO come down to me out of Heaven this picture 
of a true jianhood, when I once saw that, oh ! what 
things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ." 

The transition may be very sudden between intense 
admiration and utter contempt. A man out West opena 
a ledge, and finds what he thinks to be gold ore. Oh, 
how pleased he is ! He digs out two or three bags full 
of it, and then covers it all up. He will not tell one of 
his neighbors. He immediately starts with these specie 
mens for New York, all the while keeping his secret to 
himself. When he ^ets to the city he puts up at a hotel, 
and takes a handful of the ore and goes to the assayer. 
He thinks himself as rich as Croesus ; but the assayer, as 
soon as he sees it, laughs at him, and says, 4 ' It is iron 
pyrites ; there isn't a speck of gold in it. " The man goes 
back to the hotel chopfallen and provoked, saying, "I 
have paid my fare, and the freight on this miserable stuff, 
all the way from the West for nothing ! " In the morn- 
ing there is no value that could be put upon that sup- 
posed treasure, and at night it is mere dirt ! 

Now, here is Paul. He had been seeking for the 
ideal of manhood. He had sought it in mean ways, 
thinking that because he kept time with the clock, be- 
cause he observed the ritual services here and there and 
everywhere, he was growing in manhood. But sudenly 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. ?9 

there came to him a benign representation of manhood 
as embracing love and self-sacrifice and holiness ; he saw 
the Greatest making himself the least ; he beheld the 
glory of God in Christ Jesus ; he felt the breath of God, 
which is the breath of ages, working and moulding and 
raising all things ; he saw God represented as one who 
was a universal Nurse, giving himself for others ; and 
seeing this exemplification of truth and purity and hero- 
ism set forth as a pattern of manhood, he says, ''What 
things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. 
Yea, doubtless, I count all things but loss for the excel- 
lency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for 
whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count 
them but dung that I may win Christ, and be found in 
Him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the 
law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the 
righteousness which is of God by faith." 

In other words, the consciousness that he was being 
changed into these noble moods and dispositions which 
are in God lifted him above and carried him beyond 
those things which he had been in the habit of regard- 
ing as all-important. 

But consider : Is Paul quite sure of himself ? Paul 
was a large man. Few other men have appeared so far 
above the horizon. We are not yet ourselves large 
enough to take in the full measure of this man — for in 
my judgment theologians in times past have very largely 
occupied themselves with those elements in Paul's writ- 
ings which were clearly secondary ; and for very obvious 
reasons they have neglected those which were the pro- 
foundest, and which could be interpreted only by men 



80 PAUE. 

who had gone into substantial experiences of the same 
kind. Therefore, largely, theology has been made out 
of the washings of gold that were in the mountains ; and 
they have been the smallest part ; whereas the treasure 
lay yet mountainously abundant, but deep and shut up 
in the rock. 

We are not to understand eontentment in the sense of 
supineness or corpulent indolence. Paul was not a fat 
man, sure. He was a black-haired man, with a bilious- 
nervous temperament. He was a man of intense feeling, 
but of that intensity of feeling that does not stop. There 
is much intensity of feeling in the world that comes by 
gusts, and the very feeling necessitates a reaction, a lull, 
or a change ; but Paul was one of those men who were 
tenacious of feeling, and went on and on and on with it. 
There were certain great elements in his nature that 
remind me of the old German story of an Eolian harp 
made by stretching iron wires between two great towers 
on the castle of a certain Count. Whenever the wind 
arose these wires began to sound ; and as the wind waxed 
they sounded louder and louder ; and when the storm 
and tempest came they roared out their strains of music ; 
but it was always just those wires — no more and no others 
— giving precisely the same tones which rolled through 
the air. 

There were two, or three, or four, great strings in the 
mind of this apostle ; and when the wind blew they 
sounded ; and they went on sounding, and sounding, and 
sounding ; and he seems to have no art about it but that 
which is employed in creating the beauty of holiness — 
no historic curiosity ; no sense of literary criticism ; noth- 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 81 

ing Hellenic. He was sensitive to all that pertained 
to man's essential moral nature. In that he was a 
universal genius. And as to his being contented in any 
such sense as that of quiescence, the whole of his life, 
his passage from city to city, his unwearied labors, his 
sufferings, the things which he recounts of himself, — all 
these show that he was not content in any such way as 
not to be enterprising. 

"I rejoice in the Lord greatly, that now at the last 
your care of me hath flourished again [there seems tG 
have been some interruption of it] ; wherein ye were also 
careful, but ye lacked opportunity." 

Paul was also a gentleman. He always took the best 
view of things. He always conceded the highest motives. 
He is a mean man that is constantly thinking that other 
people act meanly. He goes on to say : 

"Not that I speak in respect of want; for I have 
learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be con- 
tent [I am willing to bear all that is put upon me for the 
sake of the thing that I am living for]. I know both how 
to be abased, and I know how to abound [I know how, 
that is, to be without a cent, and I know how to have 
my pocket full]." 

Now, there are a great many men who can do either 
of them ; but there are very few who can do both. Men 
there are who have learned how to be poor ; they have 
accommodated themselves to poverty, being satisfied that 
that was to be their state ; and there are other men who 
are going to be rich, and who say, " I am destined to that, 
and I must therefore form my character and religious 
feeling on that supposition, I must be a good man and 



82 PAUL. 

live rightly, though I am rich ; " but to know how to 
swing and tick both ways — rich, poor — rich, poor — rich, 
poor ; to be a man with both ticks, that is not so easy. 

Now, Paul says that he had learned that. I never 
heard of any school teaching such things as that. Why, 
Paul's doctrine of inspiration is enough to caU out forty 
synods any time, for expounding and discussion ; but here 
is a question that goes deeper than any question of that 
kind — How can a man live so that whatever place he may 
be in he is a full man, happy, courageous and strong ? 

"I know both how to be abased, and I know how to 
abound ; everywhere, and in all things, I am instructed 
[drilled, disciplined] both how to be full and how to be 
hungry, and both how to abound and surfer need. I can 
do all things fbrave words, these, until you put on the 
rest] through Christ which strengtheneth me." 

Yes, Paul ! with such love as thine, and such com- 
munion as thine, the strength of Christ did enable thee 
to do all things, to suffer all things — to enjoy without 
harm, to suffer without damage, and to be, in fullness or 
in emptiness, in exaltation or in prison, as grand a man 
as ever walked the crooked surface of the globe. 

1 ' But if any man say unto you. This is offered in 
sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that showed it 
and for conscience sake ; for the earth is the Lord's, and 
the fullness thereof ; conscience, I say, not thine own, 
but of the other : for why is my liberty judged of another 
man's conscience ?" — i Cor. x., 28, 29. 

I do not believe that there is another book in creation 
which ever inculcates the duty of courtesy of conscience, 
or politeness of conscience. We have learned, in so?'*l 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHFR. 83 

life, in regard to ordinary affairs, not that we are tc at$mtf 
for ourselves, but that we are to have respect for the 
feelings of others. The child is taught to give up the 
best chair, although he has got it, and although, for that 
matter, he has a right to it, and it is his. We train 
children thus to yield their rights for the sake of others. 

Speech is free in this country ; but we train men to 
courtesy, and to silence as a part of courtesy. We have 
certain rights of property, and in greai matters we stand 
upon them ; but in a thousand things we teach men to 
waive their rights in this respect for the sake of some 
contribution to the general stock of happiness, because 
that is the way to get along in life. 

There is, however, one thing which men have always 
been taught to stand for perpendicularly, without slips or 
gradations ; and that is conscience. Conscience, we are 
told, is a thing which must not be bartered, nor sold, nor 
compromised, nor in any way treated, except in a most 
up and down manner. Conscience ! Oh, conscience ! — 
that must be maintained at all hazards. 

Paul, therefore^is the boldest man in literature, be- 
cause he says that you must respect another man's con- 
science. No matter if you think he is wrong, you must 
do so. 

** But," you say, "my conscience tells me that it is the 
other way." That has nothing to do with it ; his con- 
science tells him that way ; and, no matter what your 
conscience tells you, you are to respect what his tells 
b***>. Be courteous in this as in other things. 

* 4 Be ye, therefore, followers of God as dear children ; 



84 PAUL. 

and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and has 
given himself for us." 

Out of this fundamental and vital quality there will 
spring up many other forms of inspiration ; but the root- 
form, the foundation, the fundamental element, of Chris- 
tian life, is to lie in that love to God which dear children 
have to a parent, and which Jesus Christ made manifest 
by his walk and conversation. 

We have heard much clamor and much dispute as to 
what are fundamental doctrines. There are doctrines 
fundamental to philosophical systems. Arminianism has 
certain vital doctrines ; it cannot be Arminian without 
them. 

The Manichean heresy had vital points which were 
essential to it. The Calvinistic scheme has its vital points 
without which it cannot be Calvinistic. There may be 
such things as vital or fundamental doctrines in reference 
to the human heart or to a Christian life. The requi- 
sition for a life of Christianity, is, Walk in love. That 
is the fundamental element. Out of that other things 
shall come. Without that, come what may, it is all void 
and vain. 

How long shall we need to go without an adequate 
interpretation of the 13th of Corinthians, where Paul, 
with every form of speech which belongs to eloquence, 
declared that men might know all, believe all, do all, 
practice every external charity, but unless they had love 
it should profit them nothing, but should be as ''sounding 
brass or a tinkling cymbal." With this glorious descant 
hanging in the air, hundreds and thousands of years have 
rolled away in the war of the world, men quarrelling, and 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 85 

shedding each other's blood, and burning each other at 
the stake, on account of doctrines that had nothing to 
do with love, and of which a man might believe either 
way without being better or worse. 

Here is the great quality out of which is going to 
spring whatever else is of vital use — namely, walking 
with God in that spirit in which Christ walked with us. 
We are to walk as dear children, trusting, loving, con- 
fiding ; but out of that spirit, when once it is radicated, 
and kept vital in use, will come many other experiences. 
For one may follow God with the reason, the intellect ; 
but, without that spirit, no reason, no intellect, can in- 
terpret God. We can learn by the reason ; but we may 
learn much, and that much may not help us. 

The ministry of such men, being neither mechanical 
nor perfunctory, but spontaneous and continual, and in 
full liberty and joy, is one of the most blessed avocations 
that the world knows ; and activity, enterprise, incessant 
preaching or incessant visiting — these things are not to 
be set down to credit as virtues. They are gains. 

Now, Paul had them ; and he had them, too, under 
circumstances in which they were not all externally plea- 
ant. I read a passage in your hearing, this morning, to 
show you that, notwithstanding the extraordinary inci- 
dents which befell his active ministry, it was joyful. I 
read it to show that the central idea of a Christian min- 
istry in his hands was joy : and that all those superlative 
experiences, which he had, but which were rarely ever 
experienced in the ministry of any other man, were con- 
verted into joys by the shining light of the interior cen- 
tral joys of the ^ord Jesus Christ. And what to hiir 



86 PAUL. 

were perils, or false brethren, or enemies, in the city or 
in the conntry, on the sea or on the land, but occasions 
for thanksgiving ? For, as there are some ships that go 
plunging, plunging through the seas, so that every single 
wave splits and throws over, and their decks are never 
dry, while there are others that ride the waves, and are 
lifted by whatever strikes them, so there are some men 
who jam themselves into every wave, and are forever full 
of tears, while others, with a high Christian ideal, are 
buc^ant in the midst of troubles, and ride over them, 
floating on the storm, and rejoicing. 

Paul was one of the latter. He was the healthiest, 
the sweetest-souled, the most heroic, of all the men th^ 
are mentioned in the history of the Old or the New Tes- 
lanienc. Now he was in prison ; now he had no longer 
liberty to go where he would. The cries of the churches 
were brought over to him ; but he was a man enchained, 
fastened to a soldier. He heard of their disagreements 
and conflicts, or of their welfare and rejoicings. He 
received tokens sent in to him of their good will and 
various experience. 

But it was when he was lying, ready to be offered, 
and conscious that his last hours were near to him — it 
was then, and as a part of his own experience, that he 
said to them, ' ' Having done all that lies in activity and 
enterprise and forth-putting, why, do the rest, that con- 
sists in standing and waiting." 

It did not belong to the literary habits of antiquity 
to write such analytic memoirs explanatory of a man's 
education, or of his thought about himself in history* as 
has taken place in modetn times. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 87 

Among the best books that we have in these latter 
days are either those which are a competent account, by 
s uch men as Goethe, of themselves, and of the develop- 
ment of their mind and genius, or works made up from 
the writings of men that have disclosed the progress of 
development in their character and in their history. I 
say these are among the best, because the building of 
a man is the noblest work of time ; and if it be worth 
our while to know how architects build, and by what 
principles ; if it be a matter of more than curiosity to 
know how Titian put on his colors, or how Michael 
Angelo wrought, whether in stone or in pigment, how 
more is it a matter, not only of curiosity, but, indeed, 
of that which lies far beyond all curiosity — namely, per- 
sonal importance — to know how men are made, what are 
the stages of their development, and especially in the 
case of those whose breadth and fruitfulness of life have 
rendered the race indebted to them. 

Now, if we could have had an itinerary, a journal, of 
John, of Paul, or, above all, of Jesus, how rich does our 
imagination teach us we should have been ! I cannot 
but mourn the unfruitfulness of Christ's written life. 

That his life was enormously fruitful, we have the 
evidence of his own followers. 

John tells us that if all Christ said and did should be 
put into books, the world could not contain them. We 
are not disposed to call John to an exact account for this 
statement. It simply implies a large number ; it is an 
extravagance for a definite number ; but it indicates, as 
we know from other sources, that a large part of the 
career of Christ, un watched, or unsought by the memory, 



$8 PAUL. 

was transient, and that we have, therefore, only speci- 
mens of it. If we could have had his analysis of men, 
his thought of society, his view of the maxims, pruden- 
tial and other, that had grown up in the world ; if we 
could have had his notion of armies, and of great cities, 
and of their municipal policies ; if we could have had his 
secret thoughts upon all the developments of human life, 
as we have had them in respect to the soul of the indi- 
vidual man — how large an inheritance would the world 
have had that has perished from it ! I do not discuss the 
reasons — which are many, and perhaps satisfying, to the 
intellect, if not to curiosity — why it should be so. 

Paul was, in one respect, the most satisfying of all 
the men who had to do with the primitive establishment 
of truth. 

Moses gave us but little of his life, though he gave 
us a little. Samuel gave us less of his. David wrote his 
intense life, and but very little else. As it were, only 
when under such stress of feeling that he could not repress 
himself, did he sing ; and we have that record of the 
heart. The prophets, such as Isaiah, gave us something, 
and yet but very little. 

It is not until we come down to Paul that we find this 
gracious selfness, which is spread through all his epistles ; 
and he alone, of all the sacred writers, gave us an account 
of the principle or procedure of his ministerial life. 

Corinth, perhaps the most luxurious, the most voluptu- 
ous city of antiquity visited by Paul, became the seat of 
an early church, and was rich in receiving two letters 
from him These letters — especially the first one — con- 
tain no inconsiderable amount of light on the theory, if 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 89 

I may say so, of his practice ; and it is from this first 
letter that I have selected the two passages which give 
us the key-note of his preaching on the atonement. He 
preached the atonement never as a doctrine ; he preached 
it as a biographical living personality. 

" I determined, when I came among you," he says to 
them, "not to know any synagogue ; not to know the 
Talmud, nor any other commentary ; not to know any 
sacrifice, nor any ordinance, nor any history of God's 
people, nor any philosophy, as the secret and source of 
that power which I wanted, and meant to have, in my 
ministration among you. I determined not to preach 
with art, with accomplishment, with curious cunning, 
penning up men by ingenuities of words. I determined 
to resort to no sophist word ; to no flowery figures of 
rhetoric, sounding sweet in the air, and robbing the soul 
of meaning ; to no shrewd theories of Greek philosophy 
(though Paul was brought up in a school that was per- 
vaded with the Greek spirit). None of these things did 
I rely upon. I might have been a sweet singer as a poet ; 
I might have been a bold speaker as a prophet ; I might 
have been a soothsayer ; but I had in my mind a source 
of inspiration and power which was transcendently higher 
than these ; and I determined not to sacrifice, nor to run 
the risk of sacrificing, that power, by any of these mere- 
tricious or secular ministrations. I determined to know 
Christ, and Him crucified." 

The peculiarity is not that he determined not to speak 
on any subjects except those which immediately related 
to Christ. That was not the topic before him. In those 
eld days of trial through which we went, men did not 



/ 



90 PAUL. 

want us to preach about slavery and its abominations, 
and this text was held before us, to pen us up. We were 
told that we must preach nothing but the emenities of 
the gospel. 

Paul had said that he was determined not to know 
anything but Christ ; and so they preached Christ in such 
a manner that nobody could dream what Christ was. 
Therefore, Christ was preached so as to be devoid of the 
Spirit and of power. Not the Christ that came to open 
prison doors, and break chains, and give light to the 
blind, and voice to the dumb, but the doctrinal Christ, 
was the one that was to be preached. Such was the 
charter of that illicit, ignominious method ; whereas this 
passage has no such meaning. 

Paul did not say that he was going to preach nothing 
but Christ, and Him crucified. That is denied in this 
same book. He spoke of incest, adulteries, all manner 
of traffic, and every phase of social, political and 
economic conduct between man and man. His first 
letter to the Corinthians is full of these things, — showing 
that no such narrow, meagre, poor interpretation could 
properly be put upon this declaration. 

What he meant was : * ' I determined not to know 
anything as a source and secret of power save Christ, 
and Him crucified. I did not mean that you should go 
away from my discourse saying, ' What a wise man Paul 
is ! ' I did not mean that you should go away from me, 
saying, ' Was there ever a sweeter speaker in this world V 
I meant to carry on the discussion of every topic among 
you so that, when you went away, the dominant 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHKR. 91 

pervading feeling should be, * How near we have beek te 
God ! What a view of God we have had ! ' " 

What a view ? Yes ; because he does not say, * ' I 
was determined not to know among you anything but 
Christ " — all that by itself is lame and halt ; he said, ' ' I 
determined not to know anything among you but Christ, 
and Him crucified.''' The crucified Christ was what he 
was determined to preach. " The cross," he says, in the 
first passage that I read. The cross was tha*; on which 
he insisted. 

* 'Christ sent me not to baptize." 

Not that he wished to stigmatize baptism ; but there 
was something lordlier than that. 

1 ' Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the 
gospel ; not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ 
should be made of none effect. " 

Remember the time when he spoke this. The cross 
was then regarded differently from what it is now. You 
wear magnificent jeweled crosses. I was looking at some 
crosses yesterday at Tiffany's. Some I could have bought 
for fifty dollars. For some, with fine cameos, and some 
with pearls on the top and diamonds on the bottom, I 
should have been obliged to pay large amounts. There 
were crosses there that I could have bought for one dollar, 
and ten dollars, and fifty dollars ; and there were some 
that I suppose I should have had to pay fifteen hundred 
or two thousand dollars for. 

Then there are crosses on the tops of churches, and 
there is gilt on them — they are covered with gold ; but 
Christ's cross had not a bit of gold on it. There is a 
Jeweled cross at every beauty's bosom. Everywhere, the 



92 PAUL. 

world over, it is "The cross, the cross, the cross," until 
the very name has superseded the name of Christ. Min- 
isters preach about the cross as if it meant Jehovah. 

Therefore, when Paul says, "I determined not to 
know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him 
crucified ; " when he says, "lam not to preach with wis- 
dom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made 
of none effect," — you cannot understand that thing at 
all ; for the cross in Christ's day was a dirty thing ; it was 
a nasty thing. On the cross hung the ignominious 
criminals of the world. The cross was but another 
name for all that was degrading, and all that men 
despised ; because justice — offended justice — put men to 
the rack and to shame upon it. It marked ignominy, 
and ill-desert. It was the hangman's sign, It was 
worse than the gibbet and the rope ; for it not only was 
atrocious in its cruelty, but it indicated the popular idea 
of the desert of the criminal that hung upon it. And 
when the Lord Jesus Christ was put upon the cross, He 
was put at the very lowest point of human esteem. 
There was nothing below that. It was at the bottom of 
all thought of ignominy. 

A pretty text Paul had ! A great chance had he, 
going out among the accomplished Greeks — eloquent, 
elegant men, that had reasoned, for generations, with 
the highest themes of cosmogony ; men that had their 
heavens full of gods, and had also an esoteric system in 
which still there was a theology in the proper sense of 
the term ? 

Paul, a Jew — an expelled Jew — probably a man of 
most insignificant, or dwarfed, if not deformed presence 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 93 

— this Jew, this foreigner, came among the Corinthians, 
a most accomplished, exquisite, and thoroughly refined 
people (refined to the point, almost, of effeminacy), say- 
ing, ' ' I did not intend to preach to you as your rhetors 
do, nor did I intend to argue with you as your philoso- 
phers do ; I did not come with any exterior influence to 
cheat the eye, and coax the ear, and sweeten the im- 
agination ; I came bringing that Jew whose name wa? 
Jesus. He was a man esteemed so vile by His own 
people that the rulers of the people put Him to death. 
And since they were a subject province, they persuaded 
the Roman government of His desert, so that the im- 
perial power of Rome was put into their hands where- 
with to do it. 

So the ruling power of the globe was conjoined to 
that of His own countrymen to put Him to a death the 
most disgraceful known in human annals. And this Jew 
malefactor, crucified — that is what I had to preach to 
you ; and I determined that I would never shrink from, 
and would never let go, that word crucified; that I would 
never hide in flowers of explanation that stern and cruel 
thing which lifted Christ between the earth and Heaven ; 
that I would never let Paul be so eloquent that you would 
forget that his theme was Christ Jesus, and Him, not a 
Prince in glory, and regent, in whose hands were the 
reins of empire, but cmeified" 

He tore open the grave, and brought forth the 
wounded body. The spear marks, the nail marks, the 
dripping crown marks — all these he held up before them. 
Was this wise ? Was it the way ? No ; but then, what 
was the result of it ? Was it, or was it not victorious ? 



94 PAUL. 

Did it, or did it not succeed ? Has the world felt the 
power of it, or has it not ? If it has felt it — and who 
shall deny that it has — then the question comes back 
with double force : How is it that the world should feel 
a moral power derived from such a source as that ? Are 
these the themes that are congenial to refinement ? 

If the apostle had gone into Gaul, among those coarse 
fibered nations, probably the more cruel and hideous the 
theme, the more it would have touched the animal nature 
of such men ; but here he was among super-cultured men 
— men the most advanced in life ; and he chose to repre- 
sent that most odious period in his hero's life, the hour 
of his weakness and his defeat ; the hour of his obloquy 
and execration ; the hour of his death ; and he said, "I 
stand by that ; " and he gained a victory over men's 
reason, their imagination and their affections ; and the 
world has gone up through many degrees by Paul's in- 
spired wisdom in maintaining for his central source of 
power the cross, and Jesus Christ crucified on it. Now, 
what was the secret of it : How should that be so ? 
What was there that had such power ? 

Paul saw the willingness of God to suffer for righteous- 
ness in his creation, and he sought to make it known to 
men. The cross was his theme. The cross means Christ 
suffering for the world. The cross overthrew the throne. 
Jupiter sat upon sapphire, or radiant stone, on the sum- 
mit of Olympus, receiving ; but Christ represents God, 
by the symbol of ignominy, as sitting at the center of 
the universe, giving — giving himself ; giving his thought ; 
giving his administration ; giving all the power and all 
the resources of the universe — for men. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 95 

And see how this exactly copies itself with the promi- 
nent tendencies of modern thought ; for, whatever may 
be the ultimate theories, however far they may reach in 
any direction, every one of us knows that, so far as the 
organized nations of the world are concerned, they begin 
at the point of savagism and barbarism, and that the 
advance is from this low condition up. 

Now, what power is there that can draw out all the 
finer elements of human nature ? What, that can draw 
out all the intelligence of men ? What, that can draw 
out the exquisite element of sacrifice and magnaminity ? 
What, that can draw out courage and undying fidelity ? 
What, that can draw out the ten thousand glancing colors 
of taste, fancy, imagination ? What, but some power 
divine ? 

The three evangelists that are called synoptic — Mat- 
thew, Mark, and Luke — deal very largely in the external 
experiences and relations of Jesus. 

John, distinguishably from all the others, reveals the 
interior life of Christ. It is remarkable how far from the 
educated style of thought the whole Bible is. The drift 
of education, in our day, is from things to ideas and 
relations. 

We are reasoners. We use facts as grapes are used, 
for the sake of the wine that can be pressed out of them ; 
and, often, as the cluster is destroyed for the sake of the 
wine, so the facts are macerated for the sake of the con- 
clusions. 

At any rate, there is an unquestionable feeling that 
he who reasons upon causes, he that is able to fix his 
mind upon abstract ideas, to construct them into a world 



96 THE RICH FOOL. 



of his own, is furthest advanced, and is the greatest. 
So then, men say, ' ' Ethics are very good, but doctrine 
is supreme. " 

Now, with the exception, perhaps, of the apostle 
Paul, who had received a liberal education, there is 
aJuiost not a single philosophizing spirit represented in 
ihe whole Bible. 



THE RICH FOOL. 

This one gets to be a hoary o!d man ; he is worth 
twenty millions of dollars ; and, if you will listen to him 
at midnight, it will be as it was with an eminent financier 
whom I knew, but who has gone now — I do not know 
where — and who was heard in the night, tossing on his 
bed, to say : 

"Oh God ! I wonder when it will be morning." 
He could have commanded, the next day, ten millions 
of dollars ; but he was a poor, miserable wreck of human- 
ity, whose clutching hands had become thin like a hawk's, 
who still had a sense of money, who yet was sagacious, 
and was looked up to and counseled with in the directory. 
He was an efficient man, and was called one of our 
"princes"; but he was a miserable wretch, notwith- 
standing. He loved nobody, and nobody loved him. 
He bought all the kindness he received. He knew there 
were harpy heirs who cursed God that he lived so long. 
He knew that he must leave his money. The Lord had 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 97 

put the desert of Sahara in his heart — sand, sand ; and 
not a whit less sand because it was gold sand. 

A young man says : ' ' You tell me that a man can- 
not prosper in this world unless he obeys the great laws 
of God ; now look at that man ! He died worth twenty 
millions of dollars; and he probably has not darken i 
the door of a church for twenty years. The only time 
he is known to have gone into a church, he went in feet 
first ; and yet, see how he prospered. Look at his 
success." 

Well, that man succeeded in just the part of himself 
where he did obey natural laws ; and in that part where 
he violated them, he suffered. He suffered for the want 
of that element of manhood for the want of which we 
are lean as sharks. In that part where the heart lies, 
and that joins a man to his fellows ; in that part where 
affection unites with affection, and makes that undertone 
of joy, that anthem of life, which flows through all 
virtuous society — there he stepped out, broke the string 
and his harp was tuneless. In that direction he had 
no life. He did not miss it in the activity of business ; 
but it was lost, nevertheless. He did not miss it until 
he came to make up the inventory of his life ; and, even 
then, he did not know what was wanting. Then he felt 
the lack. 

"Other men," he said, "are happy; why not I? 
Other men enjoy themselves ; why not I ? " 

Because happiness, joy, was the price you paid for 
money. You coined your affections, and gave them for 
gold, — and gold you have got. You should have planted 
them in heaven, that they might sprout there ; but, in- 



98 THE PRODIGAL SON. 

stead of that you plucked them up by the root. You 
have been so afraid of generosity that you have grown 
avaricious. You have been so afraid of wasting benevo- 
lence that you have severed every tie that connects you 
with your fellows. You have succeeded in the lower de- 
partments of life, and you are admired as a rich man ; 
but nobody admires you as a man. You stand without 
friends and without friendship. What summer is with- 
out birds, without flowers, without fragrance, and without 
the dews of night, that is a man without good will and 
the cordial sympathies and affections of his fellow men ; 
and the poorest man that walks the streets of New York 
or Brooklyn on whom everybody smiles, and to whom 
little children run and hold up their little hands and 
sweet faces, is richer than the man who is weighed down 
with gold, but whom everybody scorns, and whom people 
point at, saying, "Old hunks! Old hunks I" 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 

I shall speak, this evening, upon the narrative, or 
principal parts of the narrative, contained in the 15th 
chapter of Luke's Gospel. It is the parable of the 
Prodigal Son. I shall pass through the two preliminary 
parables, and expend the time upon this one. 

The passage opens with the gathering of one of those 
remarkable throngs that assemble to hear the Saviour 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 99 

wherever He went, and that increased in the latter months 
of His life until they became so unwieldy as to be posi- 
tively dangerous. 

"Then drew near unto Him all the publicans and 
sinners for to hear Him." 

It is not a mere matter of fine criticism that empha- 
sizes such words as "Then drew near unto Him " ; they 
are words which carry in connection with many other 
elements the impression which is produced upon the 
minds of all who study the personal habits of our Saviour. 
There is abundant evidence that He never stood afar off, 
as if in merely official relations ; that He never made 
such a separation of Himself from His people as is im- 
plied by audience and speaker accorning to ordinary 
modern usages. He went with the throng. We have 
little hints to show that when He wrought His miracles 
they were wrought in the way of affection and personal 
attention. If a blind man was to be healed, He took 
him by the hand, and led him out of the town, and then 
healed him. He would go near to persons, and put His 
hands upon them, and pronounce the senative benedic- 
tion. 

So, there gathered about Him, wherever He went, 
those who were attracted by the singular power which 
He had, and of which sympathy was largely the secret. 
There gathered about Him a large class of people ; and 
not only did they stand and look afar off, held back by a 
certain awe; but they came where He was. They came 
even unbidden into the dining halls. They came into 
His very presence. They wept upon His feet. They 
touched Him. They indulged in various familiarities **- 



100 THE PRODIGAL SON. 



ward Him. And when it is said, " Then drew near unto 
Him all the publicans and sinners for to hear Him, " we 
are to imagine that He stood in a throng of these worst 
men — as they were esteemed by the genuine Jews. 

The publicans were hated because they were foreign 
officers. Usually they were Jews ; but what business had 
a Jew to be collecting taxes from his own people to put 
into the treasury of imperious, haughty Rome ? He turned 
against his own kind, and became the instrument of a 
foreign despot. Aside from any extortion that they 
might practice, the ignominy of serving an enemy toward 
whom the Jews cherished the utmost bitterness and 
hatred rendered the publicans, the tax-gatherers, the 
most despicable of men to the patriotic feeling of the 
Jewish nation. 

The sinners were men and women of an abandoned 
character ; men and women that had lost moral restraint, 
and had gone to the very extreme in vice — the outcasts, 
the nndone, the wrecks of society. Here was a goodly 
audience gathered about Him of these publicans and 
these sinners ; and you may well suppose that the ortho- 
dox Jews felt the utmost horror of it. 

"The Pharisees and Scribes murmured." 

That is, they whispered, muttered. You know that 
sometimes good men are left to do that when things do 
not go to satisfy them. There is a great deal of talking 
behind the back, and a great deal of criticism and whis- 
pering going on, about persons who are not, according 
to their views, sound, and right, and safe. So was it 
with these men who had spent their whole lives in being 
good, and were so proud about being good that they had 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 101 

not got past the body, and had not had time to attend to 
the inward man, the soul — these men, who were so ex- 
ceedingly scrupulous, who knew the truth, who had found 
it out — who knew to a line just what the church was, and 
just what the church should be ; and who had complied 
with the requirements, who had fulfilled the law, they 
thought, in every jot and title. If anybody did not 
know what the flavor piety was they could tell them. 
They were the favorites of God. They had the law, 
they had kept the law, and they knew what it consisted 
in. When they went after our Saviour, and looked upon 
his methods of teaching, and listened to his discourses, 
they went as critics ; and seeing about Him this grea* 
unwashed throng, this great crowd of men, vomited out 
of the waste places of Jerusalem, or of the Galilean 
cities, that surrounded Him, they said : 

"This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." 
Now, they could have got along with Him very well, 
probably, if He had kept a good distance off, in ponti- 
ficial robes, and had laid down the law to those wicked 
men out there ; but He made Himself as one of them, 
and they came close up to Him, and He made them His 
followers. He received them not simply into His presence, 
but into His company. They sat at the table with Him ; 
and in that oriental country to eat bread with one was 
to recognize him as a friend. He not only talked to them, 
but He ate with them ; and that was thought to be as 
bad as to commune with them at the same table, He be- 
longing to one sect and they to another. 

Then it was that our Saviour uttered this exquisite 
parable of the Prodigal Son ; and we will follow the 



102 THE PRODIGAL SON. 



course of the Prodigal Son, for the sake of bringing out, 
afterwards, several points that may well occupy our 
attention. 

The point that He makes, and what may be considered 
as the text, is : 

"I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the 
angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." 

In another place the same thing is said in another 
way : 

"Likewise joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner 
that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just per- 
sons which need no repentance." 

This is the text — divine sympathy with broken down, 
sinful men, and divine joy in their recuperation — the 
sympathy of God and the helpfulness of God to all that 
have sinned and are making even the feeblest strife to 
regain themselves. God is on the side of every sinner 
that desires to cease sinning. 

"A certain man had two sons: and the younger of 
them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of 
goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his 
living. And not many days after, the younger son gath- 
ered all together, and took his journey into a far country." 

It is a striking fact that the first step that was taken 
amiss and downward (the first impulse probably anteceded 
this, but the first actual downward step) was the one of 
no longer desiring to abide under the parental roof. The 
bonds of affection were slackening. The wish to be his 
own master was growing in him. A vague and wild curi- 
osity to know what was in the world was stimulating him. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 103 

He could not bear the routine of morality in his father's 
house. He could not endure the restraint of his father's 
eye and voice. Therefore he determined to take his 
possessions and go and see the world. There have been 
thousands since his day who have wrecked and ruined 
themselves because they wanted to see what was going 
on among men. So he took his property and went forth 
from his father's house, and came to a far-off conntry 
where he could not be sent for nor interfered with. He 
had wild liberty. He had absolute confidence in him- 
self. He felt perfectly certain that he knew enough to 
take care of himself. 

' « Let those remain tied to their mother's apron strings 
who want to," said he ; " I am a grown man, and I know 
a thing or two. " 

No doubt, if any counsel had been offered him, he 
would have thrown it off indignantly. He was going to 
a far country where nobody could oversee him. He 
sought liberty ; but it was the liberty of the lower nature. 
It was not the liberty of the moral sense, striving to dis- 
engage itself from the thrall of superstition. It was not 
the liberty of a noble nature, seeking other channels for 
sympathy and beneficence. It was not the liberty of a 
generous soul who, seeing the truth, is resolved to break 
through old accustomed ways, and give up the world, 
though it should cost him his name or his life. It was 
not the liberty of the upper man. It was the liberty of 
the lower man. It was that kind of liberty which is 
called license; and he soon became licentious — for it is 
said: 



104 THE PRODIGAL SON. 



' * He took his journey into a far country, and there 
wasted his substance with riotous living." 

He poured out freely his means upon the cup. He 
indulged in the wildest and merriest dances. He was 
full of gayety because he was full of youthful spirits. 
He denied himself nothing that his eye saw, that his ear 
heard, or that his heart coveted ; and his passion became 
counsellors. 

4 'When he had spent all [and it did not take him a 
great while to do it], there arose a mighty famine in that 
land ; and he began to be in want." 

Of course, now there was nothing for him to do but 
to ask assistance from those neighborly fellows who had 
met him so often and enjoyed his hospitality. The 
moment he made his necessities known to them of course 
they would succor him. Not so. When he sought their 
aid they were nowhere to be found. Those who had 
shown him so much friendship, admired him, walked with 
him, coquetted with him, gone into every excess with 
him — they, surely, by their loving sympaty, would bear 
up a fellow sinner. No, they had other friends now. 
They could not attend to him. All his companions were 
gone. There was none who cared for him. 

There is many and many a young man who is walk- 
ing on the same track in the world. To-day he has 
friends enough. Just as long as his pocket holds out, his 
company will be sought, but when his pocket gives out 
he will be abandoned. No selfishness is so hideous as 
the selfishness which prevails among the passionate who, 
having enjoyed all the wild delirium of pleasure witk 






BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 105 



each other, heartlessly abandon one another in the hour 
of extremity. 

* ' When he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine 
in that land ; and he began to be in want. And [since 
he could do nothing else] he went and joined himself to 
a citizen of that country ; and he sent him into his fields 
to feed swine." 

He went into the saloon to begin with, and he went 
into the pig-pen to end with. It was not a long reach 
from the glory, the dazzle, the pride, the vanity, the lust 
and the license of his youth, to the humiliation and the 
shame, the degradation and the want of a swine-herd. 
There is no recall of him, no yearning after him. But 
there are a great many men that spent their substance and 
their youth and their health in riotous living who have a 
heart left. There are many bad men who have much in 
them that is good — who have a sense of honor lingering 
in them ; who have aspirations, and who have yearnings 
for things high and noble. There is many a man who 
has philosophy with which to reason on his own mistakes, 
and who longs to reascend the path by which he descended 
so swiftly. 

So was it with this young man, who had spent all, 
and began to be in want ; and who went and joined him- 
self to a citizen, who sent him into the fields to feed 
swine. He went, and for aught that we can see he did 
his work faithfully. He began to be sensible at last ; 
for when a man has gone down by false steps of self- 
abuse it is something if he accepts his situation, and sets 
up, in the low depth to which he has sunk, some founda- 
tion for renewed life. 



106 THE PRODIGAL SON. 

Well, you will observe how this young man is spoken 
of, as if he had been insane. It is said, * * When he came 
to himself," He had not really been himself. Every 
man has an equator, and all below that line is animal, 
while all above that line is himself. The upper man- 
hood, the highest nature, is not the animal in you. It is 
that which allies you to the angelic, to God, to the in- 
visible and eternal world. There is many and many a 
man who lives in his lower nature, and who is, as it 
were, insane, but whose sins, whose remorse, and the 
misery which comes from these, begin to bring him to 
his better nature. He has proved the lower nature, and 
found its falsity, its oppression, and its danger ; and 
through the suffering which comes from the wild indul- 
gence of his lower nature — that which he is to leave with 
the dust when he dies — the door is open to that which is 
higher. 

" He came to himself." As a man that has been in- 
sane is, by some cooling draught or potion, brought to 
sanity and reason again, and is softened, and made 
rational, so this young man was brought to himself. 

Blessed are they who, after following temptation and 
solicitation, and repairing misery, learn by that misery 
what is the royalty of their better nature, and are 
ashamed of sin and of sinning. Such was his extremity 
of suffering that he "would fain have filled his belly 
with the husks that the swine did eat ; and no man gave 
unto him." He was alone. He was uncared for and 
unprovided for. Those sweet and edible pods which 
were fed to the swine he would have chewed for his own 
sustenance. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 107 

Well, he had time for one thing — he had time, amidst 
his grunting charge, amidst the chanking swine, to think ; 
he had time to suffer ; he had time to be sorry. There 
are a great many men who have not time to be virtuous ; 
who have not time to be religious ; who have not time 
to do a great many things ; but there is no man who 
does not find time, by and by, to be very sorry, very sad, 
in his adversity. So did this young man, ' ' when he came 
to himself ; " and I do not know that there is anything 
in this world more touching than that vision of his home 
which rises, in their extremity, upon the wicked, either 
to torment them, or to lure them by the hope and promise 
of sympathy and succor. 

I have stood by the side of those that were sick, and 

I could bear to witness their pain ; I could harden myself, 
as a surgeon would, to perform all the offices that were 
needful for their restoration ; but when, in the midst of 
their trouble, when perhaps unconscious of what they 
were saying, they would call out, " Father! Father!" or 

II Mother ! Mother ! " it was more than I could bear. The 
going back of those who have gone through a career of 
license and wickedness to the visions of childhood, its 
sweet innocence, the security of home, and the joy and 
pleasure of household fellowship — I think there is noth- 
ing that touches a sensitive person more than this. 

And so the Prodigal Son, when he was reduced, 
through indulgence, to extreme distress, and when no 
man would show him any charity or any succor, began to 
bethink himself of his own father's house ; and he said : 

1 ' How many hired servants of my father's have bread 
enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger ! I will 



108 THE PRODIGAL SON. 



arise, and go to my father, and I will say unto him, 
Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and before thee." 

Now, that is honest ; that is manly. Ife did not say, 
44 I will arise and go to my father, and I will state the 
circumstances." Oh, no. 

If there is anything in this world that is the devil of 
the casuist, it is 4 ' circumstances ! " But he was not so bad 
as that. Having sinned, he had courage to look upon 
his sin and call it sin, and know that it was sin, and take 
it in all its magnitude. He attempted no acquittal, no 
palliation, no excuse, no piteous fear, addressed to the 
compassion of his old father. 

44 1 will arise and go to my father, and will say unto 
him, 4 Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before 
mee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.'" 

Here begins to spring out the exquisite delicacy and 
sensibility of a heart that is returning to a wholesome 
.repentence, to nobility and to truth. He is already 
partly reformed whose soul begins to move to higher 
instincts. 

44 1 am no more worthy to be called thy son ; make 
me as one of thy hired servants." 

Beautiful, that is, in its simplicity and humility. He 
knew how to go down, and, blessed be God, he knew 
how to go up, too ; but there are a great many men who 
know how to go down but do not know how to go up. 

Well, now fared it with him ? 

44 And he arose and came to his father. But when 
he was yet a great way off his father saw him." 

Men see a great way with telescopes ; eagles and 
vultures see a vast distance ; but I take it, that there is 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER* 109 

no eye that is so unerring and that sees so far and so sure 
as a parent's eye looking for a lost child. 

4 ' When he was yet a great way off his father saw 
him." 

And he saw all that was good in him ; for fatherhood 
in its purest form is the truest expression, as it is the 
sign and the symbol of the Godhead. 

•'When he was a great way off his father saw him, 
and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and 
kissed him." 

He waited for no word. He put him upon no con- 
ditions. There was no preparation. His father did to 
this son, that returned, just that which God does, and to 
all eternity will do, to every erring or struggling spirit 
that, uprising, goes to Him — He gave him something of 
of himself ; he gave him acceptance ; he gave him sym- 
pathy and kindness. It is the nature of God, it is the 
nature of every true father, to do it. 

The beauteous child, flattered and deceived, in an 
evil moment, flees and wanders, and goes from bad to 
worse ; and the mother's heart is sore through years, 
hearing from her and yet not being able to recover her ; 
but at twilight, on some evening, as the mother sits and 
sees things darkling, there comes a form, ill-clad, with 
feeble steps and sunken cheek, through the open gate. 
The mother knows her, and with open arms rushes to 
embrace the child that has come back. No word is 
spoken. Both hearts are pouring out a sacred tide. She 
bears her child to the house, ' ' Mother, I have come 
home to die." " My child, live." 

Ought not the mother to say, * * The public sentiment 



110 THE PRODIGAL SON. 



of this neighborhood requires that I should call out from 
you some token that you have repented " ? Ought she 
not to put her on some condition ? Would it not be a 
violation of public sentiment to take her back without 
words ? 

Nay ; is there anything that cleanses away the sin of 
a child so fast as the loving heart of a parent ? 

Men seem to think that there must be some prepara- 
tion through which a man shall come to God. Yes, the 
everlasting nature of God himself. That is the prepara- 
tion. It is the heart and soul of divine love that 
quickens to remorse the hearts of men that go wrong ; 
that brings light to their darkness ; that sees them afar 
off ; that draws them by the cords of love ; and that takes 
them then with a heart overflowing with forgiveness, not 
because they have done this, that or the other thing, hut 
because God is infinite in sympathy and in love ; because 
God's nature, the moment your soul is open to it, pours 
a stream of cleansing redemption into it. God forgives 
from what he is, and not from what you have been. 

The young man had come, you know, with a good 
orthodox confession ; and he was going to pour it into 
his father's ear ; but he found himself embraced, and 
wept over, and kissed. 

He struggled through, and said, ' ' Father, I have 
sinned against Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more 
worthy to be called thy son. " He could not get out the 
other part — "make me as one of thy servants. " He 
was smothered in his father's embrace, and he could not 
get it out. 

What was the father's reply ? He did not hear what 



BICLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. Ill 

the son said ; it all, as it were, went to the wind ; and he 
called to his servants, in fatherly gladness : 

4 ' Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him, and 
put a ring on his hand [that scrawny hand Y/hich had 
just come from the husks and the swine], and shoes on 
his feet ; and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it ; and 
let us eat and be merry. " 

And the reason was : 

"For this, my son, was dead and is alive again." 

That was reason enough for you and me, and tor 
every noble man and woman, because God has lent us a 
little of his own feeling. There is no other argument. 

Our Father in Heaven is purer and better than earthly 
fathers ; and if an earthly father knows how to bear and 
forbear, and wait to be gracious, and, with a generosity 
of love, to forgive those w r ho have gone wrong, how much 
more shall God forgive, and cherish, and build up to 
eternal life, every one that comes to Him, or that desires 
to come to Kim. 

Well, this is a beautiful picture ; but still, we must 
finish the whole scene. There was one other son. We 
have now, next, one of these perfect folk who censured 
Christ for eating with sinners ; one of these pharisaic 
precisionists ; one of these men who thanked God that 
they never stumbled ; one of these men that knew what 
was right, and always did it. The story is in this 
language : 

"This, my son, was dead and is alive again ; he was 
k>st, and is found. And they began to be merry. " 

The old house shook. The light* glanced through 



112 THE PRODIGAL SON. 



the windows. The music was wafted into the field, 
where this exceedingly good elder brother was. 

" Now, his elder son was in the field ; and as he came 
and drew nigh to the house [he could not imagine what 
they were about there] he heard music and dancing [it 
seems to have been a long time since there had been any- 
thing of that sort in the old house] ; and he called one 
of the servants, and he asked what these things meant. 
And he said unto him, Thy brother is come ; and thy 
father hath killed the fatted calf because he hath received 
him safe and sound. And he was angry, and he would 
not go in ; therefore, came his father out, and entreated 
him. And he, answering, said to his father, Lo, these 
many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any 
time thy commandment ; and yet thou never gavest me a 
kid that I might make merry with my friends ; but, as 
soon as this, thy son, was come, which had devoured thy 
living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted 
calf." 

Well, now, I would rather be the repenting Prodigal 
Son than the elder brother. Was not he a mean sneak ? 
and was it not designed that these two brothers should 
stand over against each other and teach the world ? The 
contrast between a man who, by strong and impetuous 
inclination, is led to sin, as the publicans sinned, as the 
sinners sinned, as the harlots and courtesans of Galilee 
and Jerusalem sinned — between a man who is carried 
away by his overpowering passions, but who, when he 
sees the final results of his wicked course, rebounds, and 
goes back, and frankly, honestly, acknowledges his sin — 
between such a man and one like this elder brother ? Is 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 113 

not that character painted so that it seems a great deal 
more admirable than that of this precise fellow who 
never sinned at all, to his own thinking ? 

He never got drunk — no, he was too stingy to get 
drunk. He never could afford wine. He spent nothing 
on courtesans. He was too cold, too unsympathizing. 
He did not give a loose rein to passion. It was the very 
pride of his life that he never did wrong. He was one 
of these locked-up, tied-up Pharisees, who are so afraid 
of going wrong that they do not go anywhere — who are 
so afraid of doing wrong that they do not do anything. 
He was self-contained, self-worshipping, and exceedingly 
proper. 

He was going toward Heaven stiff, stingy, lean, 
mean, selfish. He was going to Heaven like a mummy. 
And when his brother went away he probably damned 
him in his heart right orthodoxly ; when he heard how he 
was going on afar off in foreign lands, no doubt he had 
a very great horror of sin, in other folks ; and when he 
heard that he had come back again, doubtless he said, 
"The beast of burden back on my father's hands ! Now 
he will be dividing his substance with him, and I shall 
have less. Besides all that, look at the difference be- 
tween us. I never ran away and he did. I never fell 
into any impetuosities, and he did. I never squandered 
anything upon harlots, and he did. In all my life I have 
never done anything that was improper. I am made 
like a clock, having a stroke at every hour, being regu- 
larly wound up, and keeping time ; but that fellow has 
been through all sorts of circumgyratory courses of evil. 
My father has made for him a royal feast, but he neve* 



114 THE PRODIGAL SON. 



made a feast for me. He never gave me even a kid, but 
he has given him a calf " — and he was so mad. 

Where was that brother's heart ? Where was his love 
of the cradle ? Where were his childhood memories ? 
Where were those ties of kinship and blood relationship 
that should have stirred every man to gladness who had 
a spark of manliness in him, on hearing that the Prodigal 
had come home ? Where was that impulse that should 
have led him to rush into the house and greet his returned 
brother, and say, "Let me help you"? He would not 
go in. He stood off, and grumbled. The salvation of 
his brother from destruction ; his restoration to honor 
and love ; the repairing of the breach in the household — 
all these things fell on him without producing any more 
impression than they would produce upon a stone. And 
yet, he offered his sacrifices and rattled through hi$ 
prayers every day, and kept, he thought, a pretty correct 
account in his bank up above. O Pharisee ! Cold, un- 
sympathizing moralist ! How can one help despising 
such a man ? You despise him when I am describing 
him. There is not a man, woman or child who does not 
feel, as I do, that this kind of dry morality is hateful. 
You feel that a man without any heart, without any 
pulse, without any warmth in his blood, hardly belongs 
to the human family. 

And yet, many of you will walk iiv New York, and 
when you see some poor, drunken, filthy, ragged fellow, 
who has fallen step by step all the= way down, and is 
trying to reform, I am afraid you will pass him by with- 
out a thought of sympathy — without one yearning. Yea, 
I do not know but you will thank God that you are not 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 116 

as other men are. Perhaps you will say, " I might have 
fallen into such wickedness, but I was strong, and so was 
saved from it." 

When we see these flaunting mistresses of the street, 
there is much that shocks our delicacy ; yet I never look 
upon them that inside of me there are not tears which 
move as from a fountain. When I see them, I see the 
mother ; I see the childhood ; I see the girlhood ; I see 
the sad days of neglect and abandonment , I see the 
dying ; I see the cheap funeral, with no mourners ; and 
not only do I see the things that are visible, but I see the 
inner and spiritual reality. 

Do you see these things ? Does your heart go out to 
strict people, and orthodox people, and church people, 
and your set of people in your denomination ? and do you 
look upon those who are outside of your denomination, 
upon those who are not church people, upon worldly 
people, upon people who have made mistakes in life, 
who have stumbled, and gone to the ground, degraded 
and ruined, from a high point — do you look upon these 
with coldness, and even with bitter contempt ? Then 
you are the elder brother. 

If there be any meaning in this parable, it is that if a 
man stands where he thinks he is proper and right and 
virtuous, and has no compassion for his fellowmen who 
are in distress or want, even though it is by reason of 
their own folly, then he is the elder brother. Such a 
man is more despicable than he who has sinned more 
grossly, and yet seeks to repent. 

That is the meaning of our Saviour when He said, on 
another occasion, to these proud Jewish religionists : 



116 THE PRODIGAL SON. 



1 * Verily I say unto you, that the publicans and the 
harlots go into the kingdom of God before you " 

It is as if He had said to them, • ' Their chances are 
better than yours." Hardness of heart, the want of 
charity for others, lack of sympathy and genuine bene- 
ficence — this is a crying sin ; and against no class in 
Judaea did our Saviour hurl such anathemas as against 
cultured people, whose consciences were educated, but 
who were hard-hearted toward their fellowmen, and 
whose piety was without sympathy. 

Dissipation through the basilar passions is not less bad 
than you think ; it is worse than you think ; but the dis- 
sipation of the upper nature, by which all that is divine 
in a man is turned to coldness and selfishness, is a worse 
dissipation than the other. 

In closing, I will add a few points. In the first place, 
let me say that, according to this narrative, it is never 
too late to mend. 

Perhaps there are some persons that have strayed in 
here who have been thinking to themselves, "What did 
he pick out that subject for ? I wonder if he knew that 
I was coming. He has described my case exactly. I 
have been running away from my parents, from my in- 
structors, from my own self. I have slipped and slipped ; 
I have lost my name and position ; I am hovering be- 
tween life and death ; and it is strange that he should 
have selected such a subject as that." 

No, it is not any more strange than that God should 
think of you, and by His providence should draw you 
where you hear such themes discussed. And I have a 
personal message for you. I have to say to you, to-night, 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 117 

you are a great deal worse than you think you are , you 
are a great deal worse than you yourself can measure or 
understand ; and yet there is mercy in the heart of God 
for you. It is not too late for you to mend. It is not 
too late for you to turn round and go back to your 
Father, and say, ' ' I have sinned against Heaven, and 
in thy sight ! " 

I have to say, secondly, to all such persons, and to 
all who are struggling to amend their mistakes, and to 
rise to a true life, that the heart of God is in its full tide 
of sympathy, and that those who need his help will 
receive it. "The bruised reed shall He not break, and 
the smoking flax shall He not quench, till He shall bring 
forth judgment unto victory. " 

Do you remember that remarkable scene which took 
place when our Master, a month or two before the cruci- 
fixion, was for the last time going from Galilee to Jeru- 
salem ? As He came to a Samaritan village, the people 
refused to give Him shelter, or food, or drink. The dis- 
ciples had been sent forward to prepare for His stay there 
over night ; and John, whose name is now synonymous 
with the most perfect gentleness and love, but who had 
had a fiery temper, said, with James, "Lord, wilt thou 
that we command fire to come down from Heaven, and 
consume them?" And the Master rebuked them, and 
said, ' • Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of ; for 
the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but 
to save them. " 

Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. 
Jesus Christ came to teach this grand revelation of the 
universe ; that in spite of all the dark appearances of 



118 THE PRODIGAL SON. 

things, regnant in the center of all power, in the midst 
of all that wisdom, whence issues that which controls all 
laws, there is a Heart that is full of compassion. The 
law of the universe is to restore, to recuperate ; and the 
heart of God is on the side of every man who needs 
divine love, divine pity, and divine mercy. You have 
not the power in yourself to do everything. You can do 
something ; but, after all, the great work, the transform- 
ing work, the blessed work that is done in us, is the 
pouring out into our souls of the nature and inspiration 
of the love of God manifested to us through the love of 
Jesus Christ. 

Not only is God's heart on the side of the poor and 
needy, it is on the side of those who have stumbled by 
reason of strong drink, by reason of dishonesty, or by 
reason of headstrong passions or lusts. If you have 
gone through every one of the grades of defilement, and 
you find yourself among the swine, the heart of God is 
still on your side. It is on the side of the off-scouring 
and the most wretched of creation. 

Are you without a friend and without a benefactor ? 
God is your friend, and God is your benefactor. 

44 Yes," you say, " He would be if I would repent ; 
but I do not feel like repenting." God is your benefactor 
repenting or not repenting. Repentence does not change 
Him ; it changes you. 

When the son was yet a great way off, and before one 
word had entered into the father's ear, the father ran to 
meet him ; and if you have in your soul one single move- 
ment toward hope ; if there begins to be in your soul a 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — HENRY WARD BEECHER. 119 

letting go of things that are past ; if there begins to be 
in your soul one aspiration, one yearning ; if you say, 
" If I could only try ; I have tried once, and failed, and 
it is of no use for me to try again ; but yet, I cannot give 
it up, and I would be glad to try again," those thoughts 
in you are the fruit of the Spirit. They are the result 
of the moving of the Spirit upon your understanding and 
conscience and heart. 

Now, I beseech of you, grieve not the Spirit of God ! 
for what is He ? He describes Himself as one whose 
tenderness and gentleness are such that the bruised reed 
He will not break, and the smoking flax He will not 
quench, till He brings forth judgment unto victory. 

That is, He is so gentle in His dealings with men 
whose integrity, whose standing, is liable to be cast down 
as is the tallest reed that is the least able to stand against 
the wind — He is so gentle in His dealings with them that 
He will not overthrow them. So gentle is He in His 
dealings with men that in no way will He make it hard 
for them to stand or to recover themselves. 

You know, when the flame is first lit on a candle how 
feeble it is, and how reluctant it is to burn ; so that the 
least breath of air, caused by the movement of your 
body, blows it out ; and if there is in your soul the be- 
ginning of a desire for a better life, no larger, no brighter, 
than just the tip of the flame kindled on the wick of a 
candle, so gently does God deal with this merest speck 
of light of another and better life that He will not 
quench it till H^ brings vou through all the stages of 
reformation. 



120 THE PRODIGAL SON. 

You have gone wrong, all of you. There is not one 
here who cannot lay his hand on his heart and say, * ■ I 
am a great sinner, and it is the grace and forbearance of 
God that give me life and mercy." 

There is not a single, one of you that cannot say, 
1 ' Lord, I have sinned, and I am not worthy to be called 
thy son," and yet you have the assurance that God's 
heart forgives, that God's love strengthens, and that 
God's wisdom will guide you till you are brought through 
various states of development to that condition in which 
you may be transferred to the Heavenly land, and begin 
again, with ample power and a better guidance, to reap 
nobler fruits and an eternal blessedness. 



YIELD NOT TO TEMPTATION. 121 



YIELD NOT TO TEMPTATION, 



Yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin ; 
Each victory will help you some other to win. 
Fight manfully onward — dark passions subdue ; 
Look ever to Jesus — He '11 carry you through \ 

Ask the Savior to help you, 
Comfort, strengthen and keep you ; 
He is willing to aid you — 
He will carry you through. 

Shun evil companions ; bad language disdain ; 
God's name hold in rev'rence, nor take it in vain. 
Be thoughtful and earnest, kind-hearted and tFue. 
Look ever to Jesus — He '11 carry you through i 

Ask the Savior to help you, 
Comfort, strengthen and keep you ; 
He is willing to aid you — 
He will carry you through. 

To him that o'ercometh God giveth a crown ; 
Thro' faith we shall conquer, tho' often cast down. 
He who is our Savior our strength will renew. 
Look ever to Jesus — He '11 carry you through ! 

Ask the Savior to help you, 
Comfort, strengthen and keep you ; 
He is willing to aid you — 
fie will carry you through. 



DESCRIBED BY ONE OF THE MOST ELOQUENT 
PREACHERS OF HIS TIME IN EUROPE. 

REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D. D. 



JESUS. 



" My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers 
temptations." — St. James i. 2. 

Look at our Lord's case ! How clearly it shows that 
temptatiou, however much to be dreaded by us, is harm- 
less, unless where it finds corruption — that the seed dies, 
unless it falls on a congenial soil ! He lived among 
temptations for more than thirty successive years. For 
more than thirty years His holy manhood was in the fire ; 
and He came out of it without stain or sin. The Lamb of 
God, without spot or blemish, holy, harmless, undefiled, 
He was among, and yet separate from, sinners. A re- 
markable phenomenon this ! one sinless among the sin- 
ful ; pure amid pollution ; a faultless man, in whose 
chaste and placid bosom temptation never kindled a wish, 
a thought, a fancy that might no* be exposed to the eyes 
both of God and man. He Himself explains the wonder 
— "The prince of this world com^th, and hath nothing 
in me." 

122 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 123 

Bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, true man 
as well as God, He drank of our cup — enjoying as much, 
and more, than we, the pleasures of friendship, the love- 
liness of nature, the feast, kindness spread, the happy 
faces of a marriage scene, seasons of welcome rest amid 
mountain solitudes, by Galilee's smiling lake, in the 
sweet society of Bethany. But was it for these He 
lived ? for enjoyment, or for employment ? for others, or 
Himself ? Himself ! He denied Himself ; forgot Him- 
self ; barely allowed Himself the rest that nature needed. 
His heart felt, and His eye wept, and His hand was 
ready for all human wretchedness. Who so patient with 
the bad — sc gentle to the erring — so tender to the peni- 
tent ? Who sought His help in vain ? What poor beg- 
gar unpitied, or poor sinner unpardoned, ever left His 
door ? What blessings fell from the hands, on what 
errands of mercy went the sacred feet, they nailed, O 
Calvary, to thy cruel, accursed tree ! 

But there is a view of Christ as our model which 
makes the imitation of Him appear less impracticable ; 
for, as the great circles of the heavens seem to bend to- 
wards, and touch, and embrace the earth at the horizon, 
so the Son of the Most High, though exalted apparently 
above all approach in His divinity, appears near to us in 
His humanity. In that nature he presents us with a 
model we may more hopefully attempt to imitate. How 
should it encourage us to attempt it, and, not disheart- 
ened by successive failures, to try it again and again, to 
remember that Jesus, though without sin, was made in 
all points like His brethren, — bone of our bone, and 
flesh of our flesh ; with a heart strung in every respect 



124 JESUS. 

like our own ? Animated by the breath of God, the dust 
of Palestine, like that of Paradise, could have produced, 
in the second Adam, a man with every faculty mature. 
But Jesus sprang into being like one of us. He despised 
not the Virgin's womb ; and passed through all the 
common phases of human life — His conditions and con- 
nections in the world in no apparent manner differing 
from ours. 

A babe, He was rocked in a cradle and fed at the 
breast like others. A child, He had the feelings, and 
entered into the common joys of childhood ; He might 
have been seen in his night-dress lisping prayers at His 
mother's knee ; nor was He made in all points like as we 
are if He stood apart from the innocent sports of the 
boys and girls of Nazareth. 

A man, He went to church on Sabbath ; and on other 
days, the sun lighting its Maker to His daily toil, He 
wrought at a bench, and ate His bread in the sweat of 
His brow. He was bound to others by the ordinary ties 
of humanity — this man was a cousin ; these were His 
brethren and sisters ; and, among the women who fol- 
lowed Him to Calvary, and wept by His cross, she, on 
whose form, as it sinks fainting into John's arms, His 
last earthly look is fixed, is His mother. 

Indeed, so like was He in all things to His brethren 
that, until the last three years of His life, His towns- 
men never seem to have suspected who or what Jesus 
was, — that He was anything more than Joseph's son. 
They never so much as fancied that the God of their 
worship was present in the synagogue ; that the Messiah, 
of whose glorious coming the preacher discoursed in 




Thb Last Supper. — From jhe Painting by Gustave Dore. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 125 

glowing colors, was there — in the meek, modest, gentle, 
unassuming man who sat by Mary, listening to the 
sermon. 

And for what purpose did the Son of God thus 
identify Himself with our humanity ? In tasting every 
common cup — the obedience of childhood and labors of 
manhood, the pleasures of friendship and the sharp 
arrows of ingratitude, the kindness of affection and the 
cold neglects of selfishness, the joy of feasts and the 
grief of funerals,, all they suffer who toil for daily bread, 
or, animated with philanthropy, toil in the cause of 
others — our Lord not only thereby became a High Priest 
to sympathize and succor us, as one touched with a feel- 
ing of our infirmities, but, leaving His footprints on the 
sands of time, He became an example that we should 
follow His steps. 

Would any one know how to live, let him turn to 
Christ's history and read it there. See how He lived 
devoted to the glory of God and the good of men ; how 
He made it His meat and drink to do His Father's will 
and also reverenced and obeyed His parents ; how He 
honored the Sabbath Day, and kept the whole law of 
God ; how, neither envious of the rich, nor ambitious to 
rise above His circumstances, He submitted to a humble 
lot, and patiently endured its trials ; how He bore a life- 
long humiliation with contentment, and His few brief 
honors with humility ; how He cherished His friends and 
forgave His bitterest enemies ; how, gently rebuking the 
bad, and kindly raising the fallen, instructing the ignor- 
ant, helping the weak, shielding the oppressed, pitying 
all that sorrowed, relieving all that suffered, loving all 



126 JESUS. 

that lived, He lived for others, not for Himself. In these 
things He set an example. 

And, as I have seen a weaver on his loom working 
the beautiful flowers of a pattern into his web, let us, by 
God's gracious help, try to weave a copy of Christ's life 
into the body of our own. Men of God, for you no bet- 
ter shield against temptation, or stouter buckler in a 
battle-day, no better curb to pull us up on the edge of 
sin, nor sharper spur to urge us onward in the path of 
duty, than a constant imitation of Christ ; the habit of 
bringing all our conduct to this holy test — Had Christ 
been in my circumstances, how would He have acted ! — 
Would He have felt, would He have spoken, would He 
have acted as I am doing ? The Spirit helping us, we 
shall thus become living epistles of Jesus Christ seen and 
read of all men ; true followers of Him whose history is 
thus summed up in this brief but weighty sentence, " He 
went about doing good." With aims no less lofty, let 
His holy, beautiful beneficent life be the model of ours ; 
and its motto — nobler than any ever blazoned on banners 
of silk, in letters of gold, and borne before the greatest 
kings — its motto this : To me to live in Christ, and 
to die in gain. 

Besides the glory of God, another grand end for which 
we should live, as this, and many other passages, and I 
may say all Scripture, teaches, is the good of others. 
An end this which we shall be the better able to keep in 
view, and reach, by forming a correct and sufficiently 
large idea of what is meant by the term brother, as em- 
ployed by our Lord and His apostles. 

Now, when our Lord was, on one occasion, address- 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 127 

ing the people, some hearer on the outskirts of the 
crowd, interrupted Him, to say, ' ' Behold thy mother 
and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with 
thee ! " 

As when the lilies bloomed at His feet ; or a little 
bird, free of care, sat sweetly singing on a bending spray ; 
or a sower, girt with sheet, paced the furrows of a neigh- 
boring field, flinging the corn broadcast from his hand ; 
or the valley stood below, with two houses by its brawl- 
ing stream, one a ruin on a bank of sand, the other 
weather-beaten and gray with age, yet firmly planted on 
a rock whose sides the flood was vainly chafing — so here 
our Lord seized the opportunity this interruption offered 
to teach an important truth. 

To the man's appeal and the people's astonishment, 
Jesus returns this memorable answer, ' ' Who is my 
mother, and who are my brethren ? " adding, as He 
stretches forth His hand and points to His disciples, 
4 * Behold my mother and my brethren ; for whosoever 
shall do the will of my Father which is in Heaven, the 
same is my brother, and sister, and mother ! " 

Was our Lord a stranger to filial or fraternal affec- 
tion that He spoke what seems to slight the dearest re- 
lationship ; and on another occasion, addressed His 
mother not by that endearing term, but irreverent and 
unrespectful-like, said, "Woman, my hour is not yet 
come " ! 

By no means — as His life's last, dark closing hours 
bear witness. It is said that the ruling passion is strong 
in death — hence the dying scholar has been heard mut- 
tering classic odes in place of David's psalms ; hence the 



128 JESUS. 

old soldier has fancied himself once more on the field of 
battle, and put forth his remaining strength, ere he sank 
back in death on his pillow, to raise a feeble arm, and 
wave a swordless arm, and, startling the onlookers, 
thunder out the charge ; and hence, also, when death had 
struck him from the helm, the last words of the states- 
man, ere he sank, have been of the fortunes of his coun- 
try. And if the ruling passion be strong in death, I am 
willing that our Lord should be judged by this test. 
When that alabaster box was broken, what precious 
spikenard breathed forth to fill the Church and world 
with its fragrance ? Judged by this test, never mother 
had a more tender son than our Lord ; His last, loving, 
living looks were turned on Mary, and He would seem, 
amid the agony of the cross, to have forgotten His own 
sufferings in sympathy with hers. 

The birth of an heir to the throne is usually accom- 
panied by circumstances benefitting so great an event. 
No place is deemed worthy of it but a royal palace ; and 
there, at the approach of the expected hour, high nobles 
and the great officers of state assemble, while the whole 
country, big with hope, waits to welcome a successor to 
its long line of kings. Cannons announce the event ; 
seaward, landward, guns flash and roar from floating 
batteries and rocky battlements ; bonfires blaze on hill- 
tops ; steeples ring out the news in merry peals ; the na- 
tion holds holiday, giving itself up to banqueting and 
enjoyments, while public prayers and thanksgivings rise 
to Him by Whom kings reign and princes decree justice. 
With such pomp and parade do the heirs of earthly 
thrones enter on the stage of life ! So came not He Who 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. THOMAS GUTHRIE. 129 

is the King of kings and Lord of lords. On the eve of 
His birth the world went on its usual round. None were 
moved for His coming, nor was there any preparation for 
the event — a chamber or anything else. No fruit of un- 
hallowed love, no houseless beggar's child enters life 
more obscurely than the Son of God. The very tokens 
by which the shepherds were taught to recognize Him 
were not the majesty but the extreme meanness of His 
condition : 

' ' This shall be a sign unto you ; Ye shall find the 
babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." 

In fact, the Lord of Heaven was to be recognized by 
His humiliation, as its heirs are by their humility. Yet, as 
we have seen a black and lowering cloud have its edges 
touched with living gold by the sun behind it, so all the 
darkest scenes of our Lord's life appear more or less 
irradiated with the splendors of a strange glory. Take 
that night on Galilee, when a storm roared over land and 
lake, enough to wake all but the dead. 

The boat with Jesus and His disciples tears through 
the waves, now whirling on their foaming crests, now 
plunging into their yawning hollows ; the winds rave in 
His ear ; the spray falls in cold showers on His naked 
face ; but He sleeps. 

I have read of a soldier boy who was found buried in 
sleep beneath his gun, amid the cries and carnage of the 
battle ; and the powers of nature in our Lord seem to be 
exhausted. His strength is spent with toil ; and with 
wan face and wasted form He lies stretched out on some 
rude boards — the picture of one whose candle is burning 
away all too fast, and whom excess of zeal is hurrying 



130 



JESUS. 



into premature old age and an untimely grave. Was the 
sight such as to suggest the question, ' ' Where is now thy 
God?" 

How soon it changed into a scene of magnificence 
and omnipotent power ! 

He wakes — as a mother, whom louder sounds would 
not stir, to her infant's feeblest wail, He wakes to the 
cry of His alarmed disciples ; and standing up, with the 
lightning flash illuminating His calm, divine face, He 
looks out on the terrific war of elements. He speaks ; 
and all is hushed. 

Obedient to His will, the winds fold their wings, the 
waves sink to rest ; and there is a great calm. 

"Glory to God in the highest ! " 

'. ' How may His people catch up and continue the 
strain which falls from angels' lips ? In disciples, plucked 
from the very jaws of death, and pulling their boat 
shoreward with strong hands and happy hearts over a 
moonlit, glassy sea, Jesus shows us how He will make 
good these sayings, " Fear not, for I am with thee; be 
not afraid, for I am thy God " — " I have given unto them 
sternal life, and they shall never perish." 

The divine glory of that scene is not peculiar to it. 
For as an eagle, so soon as she has stooped from her 
realm to the ground, mounts aloft again, soaring into the 
blue skies of her native heavens, our Lord never descends 
into the abasement of His meanest circumstances with- 
out some act which bespeaks divinity, and bears Him up 
before our eyes into the regions of Godhead. 

The grave, where He weeps like a woman, gives up its 
prisoner at His word. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 131 



Athirst by Jacob's well, like any other wayfaring, 
way-worn traveller, He begs a draught of water from a 
woman there, but tells her all she ever did. 

Houseless and poor, His banquet hall is the open air, 
His table the green grass, His feast five barley loaves 
and a few fishes from the neighboring lake, yet this 
scanty fare supplies the wants of five thousand guests. 
His birth, and life, and death, His whole history, in fact, 
resembles one of those treasure-chests which double- 
locks secure ; for as that iron safe yields its hoards of 
gold, silver, pearls, and precious stones to none but him 
who brings to each lock its own appropriate key, so the 
riches of divine truth, redeeming love, and saving mercy 
are open only to such as come to Jesus with a belief in 
His divinity on the one hand, and a belief in His human- 
ity on the other ; — who behold in the child, whose birth 
was sung by angels, the son of Mary, and worship the 
only begotten, well beloved, and eternal Son of God. 

Now, this mingling of divine and human characters 
distinguished Christ's birth as much as His death. The 
halo of glory that surrounded His dying, crowned His 
infant head. His sun rose, as it afterward set, behind a 
heavy bank of clouds ; but the divinity they screened, 
touched their edges alike with burning gold ; so that He, 
at whose death the rocks were rent, and the sun eclipsed, 
and graves deserted of their dead, no more entered than 
He left our world as a common son of Adam. 

Not that a world which was to reject Him went out 
to meet its King with homage and royal honors. Omen 
of coming events, it received Him in sullen silence. But 
the heavens declared His glory, the skies sent out a 



132 JESUS. 

sound ; and the tokens of His first advent — unlike the 
thunders which shall rend the skies when He comes the 
second time to judgment — were all in beautiful harmony 
with its object. 

It was love and saving mercy ; there were light:, 
music, and angel forms. With this object, all things 
indeed were in perfect keeping, — the serene night — the 
shining stars — the pearly dews glittening on the grass — 
snowy flocks safely pasturing — and the shepherds them- 
selves, to whom the annunciation was made ; men who, 
whether going before their charge, 'or carrying their 
lambs in their arms, or gently leading those that were 
with young, or standing bravely between their flocks and 
the roaring lion, were the choicest emblems and types of 
Him who, dying to save us, gave His life for the sheep. 
To them there suddenly appeared a multitude of the 
heavenly host, turning night into day, and shedding on 
the soft hills around a bright but gentle radiance. 

As guard of honor, they had swept in their downward 
flight by many a sun and star, escorting the Son of God 
to our nether world. And now — ere they left Him to 
tread the wine-press alone, and returned on upward wings 
to their native heavens, and their service before the 
throne of God — these celestials bent their loving eyes on 
the stable ; and, in anticipation of Jesus' triumphs, of 
men saved, death conquered, graves spoiled, and Satan 
crushed, they sang, 

11 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, 
good will toward men." 

It was one, and not the least singular of its aspects, 
that this cloud always grew light when the world grew 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 133 

dark — the cloudy pillar of feJae day blazing forth at night 
as a pillar of fire. So shone the divinity in Him who 
was ' ' Emmanuel, God with us. " His darkest circum- 
stances, His deepest humiliations, being the occasions of 
His greatest glory. 

He was buried, and being so, was greatly humbled ; 
but angels attended His funeral, and guarded His tomb. 
He was crucified, condemned to the death of the vilest 
criminal, and being so, was greatly humbled ; but those 
heavens and the earth which are as little moved by the 
death of the greatest monarch as by the fall of a withered 
leaf, expressed their sympathy with the august Sufferer 
— the sun hid his face, and went into mourning, the earth 
trembled with horror at the deed. 

He was born, and in like manner He was greatly 
humbled, and had been, though His birth had happened 
in a palace and His mother had been a queen ; but with 
a poor woman for His mother, a stable for His birth- 
place, a manger for His cradle, and straw for His bed, 
these meannesses, like the spots on the face of the sun, 
were lost in a blaze of glory. 

Earth did not celebrate His advent, but Heaven did. 
Illuminating her skies, she sent herald angels to proclaim 
the news, and lighted up a new star to guide the feet 
which sought the place where man's best hopes were 
cradled. The most joyful birth that ever happened, it 
was meat that it should be sung by angel lips, — and all 
the more because, redemption glorifies God in the sight 
of holy angels. 

The prophet foretells a time when the wolf shall dwell 
with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the 



134 



kid ; and, bound in the same stall, and fed at the same 
manger, the lion shall eat straw with the ox. 

Here is a greater wonder ! This stable is the house 
of God, the very gate of Heaven ; under this dusty roof, 
inside those narrow walls, He lodges whom the heaven 
of heavens cannot contain ; the tenant of this manger is 
the Son, who leaving the bosom of His Father to save 
us, here pillows His head on straw ; of this feeble babe 
the hands are to hurl Satan from his throne, and wrench 
asunder the strong bars of death ; this one tender life, 
this single corn-seed is to become the prolific parent of a 
thousand harvests, and fill the garners of glory with the 
fruits of salvation. 

Mean as it looks, yet more splendid than marble 
places, — more sacred than the most venerable and hal- 
lowed temples, here the Son of God was born, and with 
Him were born Faith, Hope and Charity — our Peace, our 
Liberty, and our Eternal Life. 

Had He not been born, we had never been born again ; 
had He not lain in a manger, we had never lain in Abra- 
ham's bosom ; had He not been wrapped in swaddling- 
clothes, we had been wrapped in everlasting flames ; had 
His head in infancy not been pillowed on straw, and in 
death on thorns, ours had never been crowned in glory. 
But that He was born, better we had never been ; life 
had been a misfortune to which time had brought no 
change, and death no relief, and the grave no rest. 

" Glory to God in the highest," that He was born ; 
we had otherwise been lifting up our eyes in torment 
with this unavailing, endless cry, "O that my mother 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 135 

had been my grave ! Cursed be the day wherein I was 
born ! " 

There was only one way of restoring peace ; but it 
involved a sacrifice on God's part which the most san- 
guine had never dared to hope for. If the Lord of 
Heaven and Earth, veiling His glory, would assume our 
nature, would take the form of a servant, would stoop 
to the work of a subject, would die the death of a sinner, 
we might be saved — not otherwise ; if He would leave 
Heaven, we might enter it — not otherwise ; if He would 
die, we might live — not otherwise ; if He would enter 
the grave, its captor, we might leave it, its conquerors — 
not otherwise ; if He, as our substitute, would fulfill the 
requirements of the law, both in doing our work and dis- 
charging our debt, both obeying and suffering in our 
stead, peace could be restored — not otherwise. For these 
ends God did not spare His Son, but gave Him up to 
death, "that whosoever believeth in Him might not 
perish, but have everlasting life ; " and the ' ' set time " 
having come at length, Jesus descended on our world, to 
make peace through the blood of His cross — His angel 
train, ere they returned to Heaven, holding a concert in 
the skies. 

Dying, the Just for the unjust, He has made peace ; 
and these are the easy terms : 

" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be 
saved. " 

How gladly should we accept them ? If men reject 
peace what chance for them in war ? 



136 ADAM. 

ADAM. 

Yet what znany would not directly, they indirectly lay 
at God's door— in the attempt to excuse themselves, ac- 
cusing Hin\ Look, for example, at Adam's answer to 
the question, * ' Hast thou eaten of the tree ?" Summoned 
from his hiding-place, standing beside the blushing part- 
ner of his guilt, overwhelmed by strange terrors, tremb- 
ling in every limb, the prey of anguish and remorse, had 
his tongue, cleaving to the roof of his mouth, refused to 
do its office, we should not have been astonished. But 
fee replies ; and his answer betrays cunning rather than 
confusion. How mean and dastardly, how base and 
selfish and hateful, has sin made this once noble creature j 
How are the mighty fallen ! See him trying to turn over 
on his poor wife the whole vengeance of an angry God ! 
He attempts to save himself, and leave her to bear the 
brunt of it ; hers is the guilt ; she is the temptress. Hear 
him : 

"The woman, she gave me and I did eat." 

Nor is that all ; nor ' ' the front of his offending. " 
More, and worse still, he divides the blame between her 
and God. It is not simply, " the woman gave me and I 
did eat," but " the woman that thou gavest me, she gave 
me, and I did eat ; " a serpent in my bosom. I got her 
from thee ; the circumstances in which thou didst place 
me, more than my own fault, are answerable for my sin. 

4 ■ The woman that thou gavest me ! " 

What was this but a covert way of accusing God ; a 
bold insinuation that God, not he, was to blame for the 
Fall ; an excuse, that, like all our apologies for sin, adds 
insult to injury ; and but aggravates the offence ? 






^t jura* 

aflictions, a* Jarner= 

- 

innermost c ons? 

By th 

4radgec 

sieep and rest 

. ; by th Ml step 

cloud th ^ns e*a 

- 
attentions that, never thon^; 
come out shining like v. 

-3, how mur. tied, 

how 

It is a. 1 to know this, anr: 

-ndnesses tl ilness calls out. Is that a set- 

off tC *r. °M? 

set 
st their sorest tnals, that they nev 
God, an^: ,o kindly 

with them, as when st into darkness an 



138 GIDEON. 



deeps — their affliction abounded, but then their consola- 
tions rrnch more abounded. It was on the mount where 
JNt lightened ana thundered that God showed them His 
glory. It was in the wilderness that water gushed from 
the smitten rock and they ate of angels' food ; that the 
pillared cloud was seen by day, the pillared fire by night. 
It was when their bark was tempest-tossed, and the sky 
dark, and the sea was rough, that Christ came walking 
on the billows to still the tempest, to subdue their fears. 
Can they ever forget how then and there He fulfilled the 
gracious promise — "When thou passest through the 
waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers, they 
shall not overflow thee ; thou shalt walk through the fire, 
and not be burned ; neither shall the flame kindle upon 
thee. Fear not, for I am with thee. For I am the 
Lord, thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior." 



GIDEON. 



Crhist's followers, though weary of, are to persevere 
in their work, watch and warfare — persevere to the end ; 
like Gideon and his three hundred men, though "faint, 
yet pursuing." If, for the sake of illustration, we select 
the last of these three grand branches of Christian duty, 
namely, the warfare, where could we find a better pattern 
than his case supplies ? Whether the overwhelming 
numbers of the enemy, or the extraordinary means of 
their defeat is considered, the victory which he and his 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 139 

band achieved, and followed up with unsparing slaughter, 
is one of the most remarkable on record. 

God's foes and his, the Midianites and Amalekites, 
we are told, "lay along in the Valley of the Jezreel, like 
grasshoppers, for multitude — their camels without num- 
ber, as the sand on the seaside, for multitude." 

Inspired of God, Gideon steps from the threshing- 
floor to summon his countrymen to arms ; and, peasants 
leaving their plow in the furrow, shepherds their flocks 
on the hill, fishermen their boats by the shore, the bride- 
groom the marriage festival, and orphans their father's 
bier, they crowd to his standard. Two and thirty thou- 
sand men muster to the bloody fight ; and on vantage 
ground, in some mountain gorge, what might not such 
an army accomplish with every man resolved to do or to 
die, to conquer or to perish ? 

But when the chaff is blown away, the thirty-two 
thousand are reduced to ten thousand ; and these again 
to no more than three hundred men. 

1 ' If thou art afraid, " said the Lord to Gideon — nor 
great wonder he should be with such odds against him — 
' l go with thy servant down to the host and hear what 
they say." 

With noiseless foot, wrapped in the dokd of night, 
he steals on the camp, and, listening, hears two soldiers 
talking — one tells how he dreamt that a barley cake came 
tumbling into the host, and, strange results, overturned a 
tent; a dream, his comrade interprets, saying, "This is 
nothing else than the sword of Gideon, for into his hand 
God hath delivered Midian and all the host." 

Hailing the happy omen, Gideon stealthily withdraws, 



140 GIDEON. 



and, breasting the hill with light heart, rushes in among 
his little band to cry, • ' Arise ! the Lord hath delivered 
the host of Midian into your hand ! " 

They sprang to their feet ; and each man with a sword 
by his thigh, a trumpet in one hand and in the other 
a pitchar with a burning lamp within, they follow their 
leader — his only ordert his, u As I do, so shall ye do!" 
It is the middle watch ; and the mighty host, whose 
camp they silently encircle, lies buried in slumber. Each 
man holds his breath ; silent and motionless he listens, 
and, bending forward, peers through the gloom for the 
expected signal. 

Suddenly Gideon's trumpet, blown loud and clear, 
rings through the silence, and a lamp — for he has broken 
his pitcher — flashes on the darkness of night. 

Lost in astonishment, the sentinels stop on their 
round ; but ere they have time to raise the alarm, hun- 
dreds of lights are flashing, hundreds of trumpets sound- 
ing ; and on all sides the air is rent with shouts and this 
wild battle cry; ''The sword of the Lord and Gideon ! " 

Springing to their feet and rushing from their tents, 
the whole host is panic struck ; and, mistaking friends 
for foes in the darkness and confusion, men grapple with 
their neighbors, and draw their swords to bury them in 
each other's bosoms. 

The uproar grows wilder and wilder ; the carnage 
rages fiercer and fiercer ; Gideon and his men, the while, 
standing by to see the salvation of God. 

The host destroys itself. 

God wins the victory ; and they who struck no blow 
reap the fruit — Gideon's only part being to put the bro- 




Samson, Slaying The Lion. 
From the Painting hy Gustave Dore. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 141 

ken, bleeding fugitives to the sword, and hang on their 
rear, ' ' faint, yet pursuing. " 

The part we have to act in the Christian warfare is 
similar to this ; and similar to this should be the way we 
do it. 

Gideon's followers were first reduced from two-and- 
thirty to ten thousand, and again reduced to three hun- 
dred ; these being made spectators rather than actors in 
the bloody drama, that they might not say, ' ' Mine own 
hand hath saved me ! " 

Such is the story of the Cross. 

There, like Gideon and his men on the midnight plains 
of Jezreel, we stood by to see the salvation of our God 
— Satan, the enemy of our souls, bruised under the con- 
queror's heel. Jesus, not we, won that great victory. 
We struck no blow, we had no hand in it whatever ; yet, 
like those who hung on the rear of Midian, slaughtering 
their flying foes, we had a part to act — our part this, to 
complete, if I may say so, the work which Christ began ; 
to destroy every vestage of life in the serpent whose head 
He crushed ; to expel sin wholly from our hearts and our 
habits, as Gideon expelled its enemies out of the land of 
Israel. 



ST. JOHN. 



It has been said that there are many ways of going 
out of the world, and but one of coming into it ; and it 
may be said that there are many roads to hell, and but 
one to Heaven 



142 ST. JOHN. 



No doubt, in St. John's vision, where the final state 
and place of the blessed was represented as a glorious 
city, with streets of pure gold, and wafls built of precious 
gems, all shining in light, that fell neither from sun nor 
moon, but streamed out in dazzling effulgence from the 
throne of God, he saw not one gate, but twelve. 

These gates, each a pearl, and opening on streets of 
gold, had a meaning. 

Standing open, and never shut by day or night, they 
betoken the security enjoyed by the blessed inhabitants ; 
and also how open Heaven has been made to every sinner 
who seeks it through the hlood of Christ. 

Approach it in the right way, and whatever may have 
been your character, and is your age, country, or con- 
dition, you are free to enter unchallenged — without let 
or hindrance. 

No armed sentinels, as at earthly palaces, guard the 
gates that invite alike the feet of prince and beggar — 
Whosoever believenth in the Lord Jesus Christ shall not 
perish, but have everlasting life. 

But by these twelve gates St. John never meant that 
there are as many different ways of getting into Heaven. 
This portion of sacred Scripture is a figure. It is to be 
understood within limits ; and is no more to be pushed 
too far than many of our Lord's parables. 

There is but one way to the kingdom of God — to a 
state of grace in this world, and a state of glory in tho 
next. I, says Jesus, am the way, the truth, the life; 
not one of many ways, but the one way. Come unto 
me, He also says, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 143 

and / will give you rest ; and in perfect harmony with 
these declarations is that of an apostle, " There is no 
name given under Heaven whereby man can be saved but 
the name of Jesus." There is but one true religion 
"pure and undefiled before God." 



MAN WITH THE WITHERED HAND. 

It is a Sabbath morning ; and, its doors thrown open 
as the hour of worship approaches, the synagogue be- 
gins to fill. 

Among those who enter is a man with a withered 
hand ; and, however others come, there is haste in his 
step and high expectation seated on his brow. 

Blessed day, now is his chance to be healed. 

Jesus is in the neighborhood, and is sure to be at 
worship. Early there, likely the first, this crippled man, 
heeding nothing else, looking at none, talking with none, 
keeps his eye on the door — keenly observing all who 
enter, and often, as it opens and Christ appears not, dis- 
appointed. 

At length the feet of a group are heard ; again the 
door opens ; and the color that flushes into his face tells 
that the person has now come whom he has come to 
meet. Nor is this all he can do, and does. Observing 
where Jesus, attended by His disciples, sits, he rises, and, 
elbowing the crowd aside, without regard to their chal- 



144 MAN WITH THE WITHERED HAND. 

lenge or murmurs, pushes on to place himself before the 
Savior, — right in His eye. 

All this he can do, and does, and more. 

Ordhv-Uy concealing a deformity he was ashamed of, 
he now drops his robe, and, exposing the poor unsightly 
hand in the hope that it may catch Christ's eye and move 
His pity, sits with looks fixed imploringly on our Lord. 
There was no need for him to speak. His eager looks 
and the poor, bared, withered hand were touching prayers. 
Nor did these prayers wait long for an answer. 

The eye, that never saw misery but to pity it, is at 
length turned on him ; and Jesus says, 

44 Stretch out thine hand !" 

Strange command to others, perhaps also to himself 
— as bidding him do the very thing that he had no power 
to do. Still he tries it. 

Again doing what he can, he makes an effort — and, 
Glory to God ! bursting from his lips, succeeds. 

Virtue goes out of Christ. The shrunken hand in- 
stantly acquires a healthful color, and swells into its right 
proportions. 

In his joy the man shuts and opens it ; moves the 
pliant fingers ; and holds the miracle aloft to the gaze of 
a crowd, dumb with astonishment. 

Give him a harp, and with that hand he would sweep 
its sounding strings to the praise of Jesus. Pattern to 
men who have souls to be saved, and hearts to cure, he 
did what he could — using all means within his power to 
obtain the blessing. 

And, did people, with equal eagerness, repair to the 
church on Sabbath, as he to the synagogue, to meet 



BIBLE CHARACTERS.— THOMAS GUTHRIE. 145 

Jesus Christ, and with the same earnestness and the same 
faith, lay out their sins and soul's sorrows before Him, 
our Sabbaths would witness greater works than this — He, 
who healed that withered hand, healing withered hearts, 
and, whether they required to be saved or sanctified, 
giving power to them that have no might. 



MOSES. 



Now, the best evidence we have of what God can and 
will do is what He has already done. This was the source 
of Moses' confidence when he left the land of Midian to 
conquer the power of Egypt, and bring Israel out of the 
house of bondage. 

" Behold," he said to God, when first called to under- 
take the task — " behold, the people will not believe that 
I am able to deliver them." 

"What is that in thine hand?" said the voice from 
amidst the burning bush. 
"A rod, "was his reply. 

" Cast it on the ground," said the voice. 

He did it ; and springs back with sudden terror — sur- 
prise, fear, horror, in his countenance, for there as erpent, 
with head erect, and eyes of fire, and cleft, quivering 
tongue, is hissing at him. 

Once more the voice sounds out from the bush, 

"Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail." 

Recovering from his panic, he boldly seizes the writh- 



146 MOSES. 



ing reptile ; and now its cold, scaly form is no sooner 
within his grasp than, like many things else which be- 
come harmless in the hand of faith, the venomed creature 
stiffens into a shepherd's rod. 

His confidence established on a firm foundation, 
Moses hesitates no longer. Entrusting his wife and child- 
ren to her father's care, and leaving others to feed his 
flocks on the hills of Midian, he enters boldly on his mis- 
sion. 

Repairing to his countrymen he tells them his errand. 
The rod is his credentials. It shall speak for him. 
Assured that what God has once done He can do again, 
he bids them look. His answer to such, as question or 
doubt his authority, is a shepherd's rod, which, flung from 
his hand, no sooner touches the ground, than it changes 
to a living serpent. 

For a contrast, look at Moses — the feelings with which 
he undertook, and the manner in which he executed his 
commission to deliver Israel from Pharoah and the house 
of bondage. What a remarkable and happy contrast 
his case to Peter's ! Strong in the Lord, and in the 
power of His might, he forced his way into the palace, 
and bore himself before the king with undaunted cour- 
age — demanding the liberties of his countrymen. 

Single handed and alone, he stuck by his purpose, 
and carried it over what seemed insuperable difficulties. 
Without arms he undertook to conquer armies ; to cross 
the sea without ships ; and in a journey extending over 
many years, to carry a mighty host safely through a 
desert where there was neither water to quench their 
thirst, nor bread to satisfy their hunger. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 147 

All this, and much more than this, Moses did ; nor 
closed his eyes in death till he saw the longest, grandest 
march men ever made, brought to a triumphant issue on 
the borders of the Promised Land. 

But Peter's enterprise and his were not more different 
in their conclusion than in their commencement. Self- 
confident, rash, vain, impulsive, the fisherman of Galilee 
rushed on the perils of the deep ; while Moses, a man 
more highly endowed by nature and cultivated by educa- 
tion, shrunk from the task assigned him ; declined the 
post of honor ; and, overwhelmed by a sense of his own 
weakness and inadequacy, even remonstrated with God, 
saying, 

1 ' Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh ?" 

Nor till the Lord's anger was actually kindled against 
him, as he stood there, stating one objection after another, 
did he venture to undertake the task. He went to it, 
not in his own strength, but in the might of God. He 
looked for counsel and courage, for faith, patience, and 
success. 

And He who did not fail Moses, will never fail any 
that put their trust in Him. 

The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord ; He is 
their strength in the time of trouble ; the Lord shall help 
them and deliver them, and save them because they trust 
in Him. 

Our confidence in God's ability to save and help us, 
the bold prayer of faith, " Awake, awake, put on thy 
strength, O arm of the Lord ; awake as in the ancient 
days, in the days of old," rests on this sure foundation, 
that God is the same yesterday, to-day and forever. 



14 8 MOSES, 



Moses, when he led Israel out of Egypt, — their house 
of bondage, — had reached the fourscore years that David 
says prove to the few who attain such an age, but labor 
and sorrow. 

For forty years thereafter he guides their wanderings 
through the desert, till, way-worn and weary, they reach 
the welcome borders of the Promised Land. They are 
to enter it ; but not he, though ere his eyes close in death 
he is to see it. For this purpose he is directed to climb 
the heights of Pisgah — a lofty mountain in Moab, whose 
top affords the spectator a wide though distant view of 
Palestine. 

But should our imagination picture Moses as an aged 
man, stooping under the weight of years as, with many 
a breathing pause, he slowly takes his step up the steep, 
till, arrived at the summit, he falls exhausted on the 
ground or leans panting on his staff, and, while the moun- 
tain-breeze plays with his thin, gray locks, strains his old 
eyes on the valleys of Canaan that stretch away to the 
horizon beyond the silver line of Jordan and gloomy 
waters of the Dead Sea ; should we imagiue this, our 
fancy were wide of the mark. 

Moses was now one hundred and twenty years old ; 
yet he climbed the heights and stood on the top of Pisgah, 
with an eye as bright, an arm as strong, a foot as fleet, 
a bearing as erect and manly as when, forty years before, 
he bearded the lion in his den — the tyrant in his palace, 
and, boldly stepping into Pharaoh's hall, said, "Thus 
saith the Lord. . . Let my people go !" In the words of 
the wondrous story, ' ' his eye was not dim, neither was 
his natural strength abated. " 






BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 149 

But in this Moses presented a singular exception to 
the common fate of men. A few years, and cares and 
sorrows write their wrinkles on men's brow ; time sheds 
its snows on raven locks ; the wheels of life get clogged 
with growing infirmities ; manly strength turns into weak- 
ness, and wisdom, perhaps, into the drivelling of second 
childhood. And even where the power men possessed 
was, as it must necessarily have been in Moses' case, 
preternatural and miraculous, still the old adage holds 
true — "Times change and we change with them." 



ABRAHAM. 



i ' Take now thy son, thy only son, Isaac, whom thou 
lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer 
him there for a burnt-offering on a mountain which I will 
tell thee of, " was the command of God laid on Abraham, 
the trial to which He put His servant's faith ; and how 
did its every sentence quiver like an arrow, go like a knife 
into the old man's heart ? 

Was it easy for a father to brace up his nerve to such 
a deed ; to look on the beloved youth, the innocent and 
unsuspecting victim, for those three dreadful days they 
traveled together to the dreadful spot ; to lay the wood 
on Isaac that, kindled by a father's hand, was to consume 
his son to ashes ; to meet that natural but terrible question, 

14 My father, behold the fire and the wood, but where 
is the lamb for a burnt offering ?" 

And when the fell purpose could be concealed no 



150 JORAM. 



longer, and the dreaded hour at length had come when 
Abraham must raise the veil, was it easy to look on 
Isaac's horror and resist his entreaties, and hear his 
agonizing cries ? or even witness his resignation as, moved 
by his father's grief, and pitying him more than himself, 
he stretched his body on the altar, saying, ' ' Father, not 
my will, but thine be done ?" 

And when, with trembling hands, the old man wound 
the cords around his limbs, and felt them tremble, had it 
not been easier to be the child than the father, the vic- 
tim than the priest at such a sacrifice ? 

One stroke of the knife and Isaac's woes are past ; 
but if he does not rise like a phoenix from his ashes, what 
a return to his home awaits Abraham ! what a meeting 
with the mother ? what a future to the poor old man ! 
His heart is broken, and his gray hairs go down with 
sorrow to the grave. 



JORAM. 



Ahab and Jezebel, two of the worst characters in 
sacred story, had a son ; and with such blood as theirs in 
his veins, no wonder that Joram, on succeeding to the 
throne of one parent, exhibited the vices of both. 

His mother does not seem to have had a drop of 
human kindness in her heart. Yet he was not altogether 
dead to humanity, as appears by an incident which oc- 
curred during the siege that reduced his capital to the 
direst extremities. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 151 

The ghastly aspect of a famished woman who throws 
herself in his way with a wild, impassioned, wailing 
cry of, "Help, my lord, O King ! " touches him ; and he 
asks, ' ' What aileth thee ? " 

Stretching out a skinny arm to one, pale and haggard 
as herself, she replies, with hollow voice, "This woman 
said unto me, * Give thy son, that we may eat him to- 
day, and we will eat my son to-morrow.' So we boiled 
my son, and did eat him ; and I said unto her on the next 
day, ' Give thy son, that we may eat him '; and she hath 
hid her son." Struck with horror at the story, Joram rent 
his clothes. He had pity, but no piety. 

' « Why should ye be stricken any more ? Ye will but 
revolt more and more. " Never were these words, never 
was the fact that unsanctified afflictions have the same 
hardening effect on men which fire, that melts gold, has 
on clay, more strikingly illustrated than on this occasion. 
So far from rending his heart with his garment, and 
humbling himself before the Lord, Joram flares up into 
fiercer rebellion ; and, turning from these victims of the 
famine to his courtiers, he grinds his teeth to profane 
God's name, and vows vengeance on his prophet, saying, 
* ' God do so and more also to me, if the head of Elisha, 
the son of Shaphat, shall stand on him this day." 

Impotent rage against the only man who could have 
weathered the storm and saved the stale ! The prophet's 
head stood on his shoulders when that of this son of a 
murderer — as Elisha called him — lay low in death in the 
dust of Naboth's vineyard. The day arrives which sees 
the cup of Joram's iniquity full, and that of God's 
patience empty — drained to the last drop. 



152 JEHU. 

JEHU. 

Launched like a thunderbolt at the house of Ahab, 
Jehu makes right for Jezreel with impetuous, impatient 
speed. A watchman on the palace tower catches afar 
the dust of the advancing cavalcade, and cries, " I see a 
company ! " 

Guilt, which sleeps uneasy even on downy pillows, 
awakens, on the circumstance being reported to him; the 
monarch's fears. 

A horseman is quickly dispatched with the question, 
' ' Is it peace ?" Thus, pulling up his steed, he accosts 
the leader of the company, who, drawing no rein, replies, 
in a tone neither to be challenged nor disobeyed, 

1 ' What hast thou to do with peace ? Get thee be- 
hind me ! " 

Failing the first's return, a second horseman gallops 
forth to carry the same question and meet the same re- 
ception. 

Sweeping on like a hurricane, the band is now near 
enough for the watchman to tell, " He came near unto 
them, and cometh not again ; " and also to add, as he 
marks how the leader is shaking the reins and lashing the 
steeds of his bounding chariot, "The driving is like the 
driving of Jehu, the son of Nimshi ; for he driveth furi- 
ously." 

Displaying a courage that seemed his only redeeming 
quality, or bereaved of sense, according to the saying, 
"Whom God intends to destroy, He first makes mad," 
Joram instantly throws himself into his chariot, advances 
to meet the band, and demands of its leader, " Is it peace, 
Jefai*?" 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 153 

4 « What peace, " is the other's answer, "so long a* 
the wnoredoms of thy mother and her witchcrafts are se 
many r" 

With the words that leave his lips an arrow leaves 
his bow to transfix the flying king — entering in at hi? 
back and passing out at his breast ; and when he is cast f 
a bloody corpse, into Naboth's vineyard, and dogs are 
crunching his mother's bones, and Jehu has climbed the 
throne, and Elisha walks abroad with his head safe on 
his shoulders, and the curtain falls on the stage of these 
tragic and righteous scenes, it was a time for the few 
pious men of that guilty land to sing, ' « Lo thine enemies, 
O Lord, lo thine enemies shall perish ; but the righteous 
shall flourish like the palm-tree ; they shall grow like a 
cedar of Lebanon." Such was the mission of Jehu. 



THIEF ON THE CROSS. 

Take two instances. 

Look at the thief on the cross. It is from the very 
edge of the pit, just as he is going over, that the mighty 
han*d of Jesus plucks him. Who, that heard that robber, 
with his fellow and the base crowd, insult a dying Savior, 
who, that saw him nailed to his cross, a daring, despair- 
ing, hardened ruffian, could have believed it possible that 
a few hours thereafter he would be singing songs in Para- 
dise ? Yet the sun of that day had not set behind 
Judah's hills ere a blaspheming wretch, ripe for hell, was 



154 ST. PAUL. 



converted, saved, and sanctified ; and had taken his 
flight to Heaven to tell to listening angels what mercy 
had done for him — how Christ had saved him at the 
uttermost. 



ST. PAUL. 

Look also at Paul. The old bed of the sea laid bare 
for the foot of Israel, the dry rock changed into a gush- 
ing fountain, the rotting tenant of the tomb rising at 
Christ's word, to appear, once divested of the grave 
clothes, with life sparkling in his eye and health bloom- 
ing on his rosy cheek, did not attest God's power over 
dead matter more plainly than Paul's conversion attests 
His power over a depraved heart. 

What more incredible than that yonder man who, 
with a fierceness, a firmness of purpose, and an intensity 
of hatred, uncommon to the ingenious years of youth, 
stands glutting his eyes with Stephen's blood, would ere 
long be Christ's greatest and most devoted apostle ; and 
would die, after a life of unparalleled sufferings, a martyr 
in the very cause for which he shed the first martyr's 
blood ? Yet so it was. 

Is anything too hard for Me ? saith the Lord ; in 
other and fuller words — is any heart too hard for Me to 
break ; any sin too great for Me to pardon ; any passions 
too strong for Me to bind ; any habits too old for Me to 
change ; any prayer too great for Me to answer ; or any 
wants too many for Me to supply ? 

The blessed lesson such cases teach us is this, that 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 153 



however great the difficulties, or deep the sorrows, or 
strong the temptations, or arduous the duties of His peo- 
ple. His grace, as He promises, shall be sufficient for 
them. And so they may use the highest and yet the 
humblest, the bravest though by no means boastful say- 
ing that ever fell from mortal lips — " I can do all thing3 
through Christ which strengthened me." 

Like some of old, does he say, I am for St. Paul, not 
for St. James? St. Paul is not for him. I can fancy 
that apostle, in horror, rending the garment he wears in 
Heaven ; repudiating the connection. One in glory be- 
fore the throne, he and St. James are one in sentiment 
in this Bible. 

St. Paul, indeed, counted all things loss for Christ. 
He held the Cross aloft ; and, shaking that banner from 
its folds in the face of friend and foe, he waved it over 
the scaffold where his testimony was sealed with his 
blood. But the faith he preached was a faith that 
worketh — worketh by love ; crucifieth the flesh ; purifieth 
the heart ; and overcometh the world. 

Mark his last words to the Christians of a city in 
whose dungeons he had sung Christ's praises, and whose 
jailer he had conducted to Christ's feet : 

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, what- 
soever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, 
whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, 
whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any 
virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these chings. " 

Fear to die ? The apostle knew in whom hs had be- 
lieved. He was persuaded that neither death nor life, 
nor things present nor things to come, should oe able to 



15 G ST. PAUL. 



separate him from the love of God which was through 
Jesus Christ. He had a full assurance that the blessed 
Master whom he had lived, and was about to die, to serve, 
would receive him to His glorious rest. 

Never bond-slave longed for emancipation, or pining 
captive for green fields and home, or soldier, weary of war 
for his discharge, or weather-beaten mariner, as he lay 
on the helm battling with rude seas and roaring tempests, 
for a quiet harbor, more than Paul for death ; to depart 
and be with Jesus. 

And since it is at death the servant, having ended his 
task, receives his wages ; the soldier, having closed the 
battles, receives his crown ; the pilgrim, having finished 
his journey, is welcomed to his Father's house, and 
enters into rest ; how much more common were the hopes 
and peace and triumph of Paul, did Christians labor 
more diligently to make their calling and election sure. 
Many more might die offering in the manner of their 
death the greatest sermon that was ever preached, the 
grandest spectacle that can be seen on earth. Peace en- 
joyed amid such terrors and distractions is a spectacle to 
turn aside the steps of Moses. Here is a bush burning, 
yet not consumed. 

It was a sight worth seeing, when the young shepherd 
stood by the giant's vast form, with his foot planted on 
his neck, and mothers and maidens, conducting him from 
the field of a glorious victory, sang his praises to the 
timbrel and the dance ; but it is a spectacle more glori- 
ous still to see a dying saint treading death and the devil 
beneath his feet, in the sublime power of faith conquer- 
ing all mortal and guilty fears, calmly awaiting the hour 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 157 

of departure, comforting the mourners who weep around 
his bed, and with a placid smile bidding the world adieu. 
Amid such scenes faith achieves her grandest triumphs. 
There, the infidel has felt compelled to do her homage ; 
and has been heard to say, on leaving the field of such 
a victory, ' ' May I die the death of the righteous, and 
may my last end be like his ! " 

It was not thus, as some have done, that Paul spoke 
of good works. It may be news to many, yet it is true, 
that he applies the same lofty terms to them which he 
uses to proclaim and enforce salvation by the blood of 
Christ. 

To Timothy he says, ' * This is a faithful saying, and 
worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into 
the world to save sinners ; " and to Titus he says, em- 
ploying not an equivalent, but the identical expression, 
4 ' This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that 
thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in 
God might be careful to maintain good works." 

On death-beds, on the deck, wherever loved ones 
tear themselves from each other's arms, at all partings, 
the last are not the least important words ; and it is with 
exhortations to good works that Paul takes farewell of 
the church of Philippi. "Finally, brethren," he says, 
"whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are 
honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are 
pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are 
of good report ; if there be any virtue, and if there be 
any praise, think on these things." 

Elsewhere, placing good works on a yet loftier plat- 
form, in language the strongest possible according them 



158 ST. PAUL. 



yet higher honors, he says, ' ' God is not unrighteous to 
forget our work of labor and love showed toward His 
name ; " and after that it were surely no presumption to 
say that it cannot be wrong for us modestly to remember 
what God will not forget ; and further still, that it can- 
not be right for us to be careless of such works as this 
great preacher of faith says are ordained of God, and 
bids us be careful to maintain. 

Come, for example, into this workshop of Corinth, 
where Paul is spinning cordage, or sewing a covering, or, 
axe in hand, fashioning a pole, or otherwise busy tent 
making. 

Finding the great Apostle of the Gentiles employed 
in such secularities, one is tempted to address him in 
God's words to the prophet, "What doest thou here, 
Elijah ?" Is this a place, or that an employment for such 
a man as Paul ? And yet, though, all fashioned alike, 
made of the same materials, and sold in the same mar- 
ket, there is no apparent difference between his tents and 
those of others ; whether Paul work with axe or needle, 
the hours he spends in tent-making are sanctified — are 
spent in the work of the Lord. He asserts a minister's 
just claim to maintenance, and yet earns his bread with 
the sweat of his brow, forgetting his rights that the min- 
istry be not hindered. 

Acting from the noblest motives and for such an end, 
Paul gives a religious character to a common employ- 
ment ; and the needle of the tent-maker neither demeans 
nor dishonors the hand that waved tumultuous assemblies 
into silence, and won the honors of a martyr's crown. 
"Whether I eat or drink," he said, "or whatsoev# r 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 159 

ii ■ * 

I do — go to a feast, or a funeral ; make tents, or sermons ; 
go to the market to sell my work for money, or to the 
church to sell Christ's free salvation without money or 
price ; earn my bread with the sweat of my brow, or ac- 
cept the hospitality of Gaius, mine host ; make tents at 
Corinth, or fight with wild beasts at Ephesus ; escape 
from Damascus in a basket, or, brought to bay, stand 
like a lion before Nero at Rome, — I do all to the glory 
of God!" 

Doing so, all he did, and doing all we do, may be 
appropriately called the work of the Lord. 



ST. PETER, 



Such is the help which His people have in their God ; 
and this furnishes the key to the strange paradox of Paul, 
"When I am weak, then I am strong" — in other and, 
apparently, self-contradictory words, when I am weak 
then I am not weak ; when I am not strong, then I am 
strong. 

Peter's history, and that of many others besides, sup- 
plies a remarkable illustration of the reverse proposition, 
this, namely, When I am strong, then am I weak. 

Let us look at it. So strong was Simon in his own 
vain judgment that instead of waiting till Christ invited 
him to walk on the water, he volunteered to make the 
bold attempt. Addressing his Master as, stepping with 



160 ST. PETER. 



Godlike majesty from billow to billow, He approached 
their boat, Peter said, * ' Lord, if it be thou, bid me come 
unto thee on the water." 

To drown not him, but his vanity, and mortify the 
conceit and presumption which was his besetting sin, our 
Lord acceded to Peter's request, saying, " Come." 

The permission is no sooner granted than, probably 
without a prayer for Divine help, and certainly with more 
rashness than genuine courage, he leaps from the boat. 
The water bears him up ; he walks the rolling billows — 
yet, ere he rejoins his companions, how effectually is he 
taught that when a man is strong, then he is weak ? He 
began to build without counting the cost ; and the only 
result is a house which, unfinished and unfurnished, re- 
mains the inglorious monument of his pride and poverty. 
Its terror, increased by the gloom of night, the storm 
raves and roars, and the waves rushing on with foaming 
crests threaten to engulf him, and avenge themselves on 
the puny mortal who has dared to defy their po^er. His 
situation is novel and alarming. A panic seizes him ; his 
courage melts like a snow-flake on the w^cer ; he feels 
the waves opening beneath his feet ; he sruks, deeper and 
deeper he sinks, till this rash adventure., who would walk 
the sea, the rival of his Master and the envy of his fel- 
lows, raises his drowning head to tiirj>w out his arms and 
cry, ' ' Lord, save me ! " 

As has often happened, wke*e there was more than 
life at stake, and in scene? less picturesque, or public, 
Jesus hastens to the rescue. " a refuge and strength, a 
very present help in tim^ of trouble ; " and, upheld by 
the arm that upholds th& universe, Peter is bcxne back 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 161 

to his companions, who receive him into the boat, pale, 
half-drowned, trembling with abject terror — a warning 
and very memorable illustration of the saying, " Pride 
goeth before a fall." 



SAMSON. 

Take these two examples in illustration of that remark. 
First, the case of Samson, whose great strength saved 
his country from oppression, and struck terror into the 
boldest of his enemies. A lion meets him, and, taking 
it by the jaws, he rends it like a young kid, asunder ; sure 
of their prey, they shut him up in Gaza, and he wrenches 
off its ponderous gates, and, bearing them to a neigh- 
boring hill-top, laughs his enemies to scorn ; catching 
him to a disadvantage, the Philistines beset him, and, for 
lack of sword or battle-axe, seizing a jaw-bone that lies 
at his hand, he throws himself on their serried ranks, 
and, cutting down a man at every blow, leaves a thou- 
sand dead on the field. Yet see — his long locks lying on 
Delilah's floor, and the harlot that betrayed him count- 
ing her ill-earned gains — Samson is led away bound, the 
laughing-stock of women and children. Now a poor, 
blinded prisoner, making sport to the Philistines, how 
are the mighty fallen ! — his hand is shortened that it can- 
not save. 



NEHEMIAH. 

Who ponders the apostle's words aright, and forms a 
proper estimate of their importance, will be less sur- 



162 NEHEMIAH. 



prised than some, no doubt, are at the manner in which 
Nehemiah mentions his good works in his prayers. 

Addressing God, he speaks of them in a way which 
many good men never ventured on. When counselled to 
fly, he spurned the coward advice ; and, asking, ' ' Shall 
such a man as I flee ? against the enemies of his God, his 
faith, his country, and his countrymen " — 

stood like an iron pillar strong 
And steadfast as a wall of brass. 

But some who admire the boldness with which, amid a 
crowd of enemies, he faces man, may think his bearing 
before God over bold ; and that he trode the borders of 
presumption — when, relating his pious and patriotic 
deeds, he addresses Jehovah, saying, 

" Wipe not out my good deeds that I have done for 
the house of my God, and for the offices thereof ! " 

Did such a thought occur to them when engaged in 
prayer, many would strangle it in their hearts — regarding 
it as a suggestion of the devil ; a temptation to be re- 
sisted, if not a sin to be mourned ; as only suited to the 
lips of one who distributed his alms to the sound of a 
trumpet, and prayed in corners of the street that he 
might be praised of men, and said, expressing the senti- 
ments of a heart inflated with pride, ' ' I thank thee, O 
God, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, un- 
just, adulterers, or even as this publican ! " Yet, when 
Nehemiah prayed, " Remember me, O God, concerning 
this," he only asked Him to remember what Paul assures 
us God is not so unrighteous as to forget. 

He was no proud, self-righteous Pharisee. A most 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 163 

devout, humble, and holy man, he confessed his own and 
his people's sins — praying, fasting, weeping, and, while 
he asks his good works to be remembered, throwing him- 
self at God's feet to cry, "Spare me according to the 
greatness of Thy mercy ! " What a fine example of a 
true Christian — the humble believer, yet the diligent 
worker ! 

The truth is, that to set little store on good works is 
an immoral and most pestilent heresy. The works by 
which we recommend religion and adorn the doctrine of 
God our Savior, the works which spring from love to 
Christ and aim at the glory of God, the works by which 
a good man blesses society and leaves the world better 
than he found it, are not the "filthy rags" of Holy 
Scripture. 

No filthy rags, but the gracious and graceful orna- 
ments of a blood-bought Church ; these, on the contrary, 
are the "gold of Ophir," "the raiment of needle-work" 
in which His bride, apparelled as a queen, stands at her 
Lord's right hand — a lovely form, in a blaze of beauty 
and of jewels. 



JOB. 

In Old Testament times Christianity was in the open- 
ing bud ; now it is in the full-blown flower. Sustained 
then by types and symbols, it was the eaglet when the 
mother stirs her nest and bears it on her wings ; now a 
full-feathered eagle with her foot on the rock, and her 
far-piercing eye on the sun, she springs upward to cleave 



164 JOB. 

the parting clouds and soar high above them. Still, 
though without our advantages, these Old Testament 
saints present remarkable instances, among other graces, 
of resignation ; and, as we see the trees in early spring, 
living, standing — though autumn blasts and winter frosts 
have stripped off all their leaves — we see in these patri- 
archs how stoutly faith in God can stand when trials have 
robbed life of every green joy, and the days come, of 
which he says, "I have no pleasure in them," the poor 
sufferer would be happy with his head beneath the sod, 
to sleep where the wicked cease from troubling, and the 
weary are at rest. 

What an illustrious example of this was Job, when 
deep answered unto deep at the noise of God's water- 
spouts ! Billow after billow went over him ; he goes 
down, never, as it seemed, to rise again ; but faith can- 
not down, and how wonderful to see his head emerge, 
and, as he looks around on the desolation, fortune and 
family engulfed, to hear him say, "The Lord giveth, 
and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the 
Lord;" or, " Though He slay me, yet will I trust in 
Him." 

"He has slain mine, my sons, my daughters, my 
joys and hopes, all are dead and gone ; now let Him slay 
not mine, but me also, yet will I trust in Him." 

What faith ! What sublime resignation ! 

And would we, now suffering under trials, bear them, 
or, having to suffer, would we meet them with like 
submission, we must learn to yield to, not to resist, 
God's will. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 165 

PAUL. 

1 ' Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us 
meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in 
light." — Colossians i. 12. 

The inspired writers, in setting forth salvation, adopt 
sometimes the one course, and sometimes the other. 

With Paul, for instance, the subject of Heaven now 
introduces Christ, and now from Christ, the apostle turns 
to expatiate on the joys of Heaven. 

Here, as on an angel's wing that sheds light on every 
step, we see Him ascending, and there descending the 
ladder. Taking flight from the cross, He soars upward 
to the crown ; and now, like an eagle sweeping down 
from the bosom of a golden cloud, He leaves the throne 
of the Redeemer to alight on the heights of Calvary. 

As an example of the ascending method, we have 
that well-known passage in his epistle to the Romans — 
* ' For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to 
be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might 
be the first born among many brethren ; moreover, whom 
He did predestinate, them He also called ; and whom He 
called, them He also justified ; and whom He justified, 
them He also glorified. " 

There we pass from the root to the fruit, from the 
cause, step by step, to its effects ; here again, Paul 
guides us upward along the stream of blessings to their 
perennial fountain. He first shows the precious gift, and 
then reveals the gracious giver ; the purchase first, and 
afterward the divine Purchaser. 

From the crown of glory, flashing on the brew of & 



166 PAUL. 



Magdalene, He turns our dazzled eyes to another crown, 
a trophy hung upon a cross ; a wreath of thorns, armed 
with long sharp spikes — each, in place of a pearly gem, 
tipped with a drop of blood. 

He first introduces us to Heaven as our inalienable 
heritage, and then to the throne and person of Him who 
won Heaven for us. He conducts us up to Jesus, that 
we may fall at His feet with adoring gratitude, and join 
in spirit the saintly throng who dwell in the full fruition 
of His presence, and praise Him throughout eternity. 

The first and most notable champion who appeared 
on the field was the apostle Paul ; and as, panoplied from 
head to heel in the armor of God, he stalks into the 
arena, and, looking undaunted around him, is ready to 
fight and to die for the truth, observe the motto on his 
battle-shield : 

' ' I determined not to know anything among you, 
save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." 

It is not simply Jesus Christ ; though given by an 
angel and full of meaning, that was a great name. Nor 
is it Christ come, nor Christ coming, nor even Christ 
crowned ; but Christ dying on a cross, ' ' Christ, and Him 
crucified." 

Life to sinners through a Savior's death, salvation by 
substitution, redemption through blood — that blood the 
ransom and Jesus the Redeemer — was the substance of 
all Paul's sermons, the theme of his praise, the deepest- 
rooted and most cherished hopes of his heart. 

He lived and died in that faith ; and, though that 
tongue of power and eloquence be now silent in the 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 167 

grave, he proclaims to listening angels in Heaven what 
he preached to men on earth. 

He proclaims it, not in sermons, but in songs ; for in 
that serene and better world, where no storms disturb 
the church, nor controversies rage, nor clouds obscure 
the light, they sing, salvation by the blood of Christ. 

May we cast away all other hope ! — and, with our 
whole hearts embracing that, we shall one day join the 
vast congregation whose voices fell on John's ear as the 
sound of many waters, while in harmonious numbers and 
to golden harps they sang before the throne, " Thou wast 
slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood." 

Compared with our Lord Jesus Christ, see how much 
Paul did in actually revealing the will of God to men. 
Jesus preached three years, bat Paul thirty. Jesus 
preached only to Jews, but Paul to Jew, and Greek, and 
Roman, Parthian, Scythian, Barbarian, bond and free. 
Jesus numbered His converts by hundreds, Paul his by 
thousands. Jesus confined His labors to the narrow 
limits of Palestine ; Paul overleaped all such bounds, he 
took the wide earth for his field, and flying, as on angel's 
wings, he preached the Gospel alike to the bearded Jew, 
the barbarians of Melita, the philosophers of Athens, 
and in the streets and palaces of Rome, to the conquerors 
of the world. 

Yet look at this great apostle ; he lies as low at Jesus 
feet as the woman who washed them with her tears, and 
wiped them with the hairs of her head. He wore chains 
for Christ, and gloried in them ; nor was ever queen so 
proud of her diamond coronet, nor man in office of his 



168 PAUL. 

chain of gold, as he of the iron manacles he wore for 
Christ, and boldly shook in the face of kings. 

To serve the cause of Jesus, he could submit to be 
beaten, and scourged, and starved, and stoned, and cast 
at Epheus to hungry lions ; but one thing he could not 
bear — grief and horror seize him when he finds himself 
set on a level with his Master. 

To a divided church, rent by factions and full of par- 
tisanship, where one is crying, I am of Paul, and an- 
other, I am of Apollos, and a third, I am of Cephas, and 
a fourth, I am of Christ, he turns round with indignation, 
to ask, ' ' Is Christ divided ? was Paul crucified for you ? 
or were ye baptised in the name of Paul ?" 

In whatever others may glory, he ascribes all the 
glory of redemption to the cross of Christ, and, rebuk- 
ing that party spirit and respect for human authority, 
which is still too prevalent among us, he exclaims, " God 
forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord 
Jesus Christ." 

An example also of discordancy, but with mind tow- 
ering aloft over matter, what a noble contrast does Paul 
present to Samson ! 

There is nothing in the outward man to attract the 
gazer's eye. According to ancient tradition, he was a 
poor, mean-looking figure. His presence, said his enemies, 
is weak, and his speech contemptible. But put his parch- 
ments before him, put a pen in his hand, and, higher 
than the bird ever flew from whose wing it dropped, he 
soars away into a heaven of thought, or, coming down 
with an eagle's swoop, descends further than any man 
before or since, into the deepest depths of gospef. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 169 

mysteries. Or, give him liberty of speech ; place him on 
Mars' Hill to expound his despised faith, or let him stand 
on his defence at the bar of kings, like a lion at bay. 

Indifference gives place to interest, contempt changes 
into admiration, the audience is hushed, and, amid 
breathless silence, he sways the multitude with a mas- 
ter's hand, his puny form seeming to rise to a giant's 
stature. He seizes error, and rends it, as Samson rent 
the lion ; he lays these arms of his on the colossal pillars 
of Time's oldest superstitions, shakes the hoary fabric, 
and pulls it down into the dust, burying gods and god- 
desses in one common ruin. 



JESUS. 

Let us inquire in what character Jesus holds this 
kingdom. It is not as God, nor as man, He holds it ; but 
as both God and man, Mediator of the New Covenant, 
the monarch of a new kingdom. What He was on earth 
He is still in Heaven — God and man for ever. 

Our Lord appeared in both these characters by the 
grave of Lazarus. 

" Jesus wept." 

Brief but blessed record ! These were precious tears. 

The passing air kissed them from His cheek, or they 
were drunk up by the earth, or they glistened but a little, 
like dew-drops on some lowly flower ; yet assuring us of 
His sympathy in our hours of sorrow, their memory has 
been healing balm to many a bleeding heart. 



170 JESUS. 

Weeping, His bosom rent with grief, He stands re- 
vealed — bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh — a brother 
born for adversity, for the bitter hour of household 
deaths, to impart strength to the arms that lay the dead 
in the coffin, or slowly lower them into the tomb. 

Yet, mark how, by the same grave, He stands re- 
vealed in another character, with His divine majesty 
plainly unveiled. To weep for the dead may be weak- 
ness, but to raise the dead is power. 

Like the clear, shining after rain, when every tree 
seems hung with quivering leaves of light, and the heath 
of the moor sparkles, and gleams, and burns with the 
clanging hues of countless diamonds, see how, after that 
shower of tears, the sun of Christ's Godhead bursts forth 
on the scene, and He appears, the brightness of His 
Father's glory. 

Men have wept with Him ; but there, where He 
stands face to face with grim death, let both, men and 
angels worship Him. Death cowers before His eye. He 
puts off the man, and stands out the God ; and the won- 
der of the dead brought to life is lost in the higher 
wonder of one who could weep as a man, and yet work 
as a God. 

On the Sea of Galilee also, our Lord appears in both 
characters. The son of Mary sleeps. His nights have 
been spent in prayer, and his days in preaching, healing, 
incessant works of benevolence — He has been teaching 
us how we also should go about doing good — He has been 
practically rebuking those whose days are wasted in ease 
and idleness, or whose evenings, not calm like nature's, 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 171 

but passed amid the whirl of excitement, or in guilty 
pleasures, sweet slumbers refuse to bless. 

Now, wearied out with labor, the son of Mary sleeps. 

There is no sleeping draught, no potion of the 
apothecary that can impart such deep, refreshing slum- 
bers as a good conscience and a busy day's good work. 

Proof of that, stretched on His bare, hard couch, 
Jesus sleeps — amid the howling of the wind, the dash 
and roar of stormy billows, He sleeps as soundly as ever 
slept a babe in its mother's arms. 

He lay down, a weary man ; but see how He rises, at 
the call of His disciples, to do the work of a God. 

On awakening, He found the elements in the wildest 
uproar, the waves were chasing each other over the deep, 
the heavens were sounding their loudest thunders, the 
lightnings were playing among the clouds, and the winds, 
let loose, were holding free revelry in the racked, tor- 
mented air. 

As I have seen a master, speaking with low and gen- 
tle voice, hush the riotous school into instant silence, so 
Jesus spake. Raising His hand, and addressing the rude 
storm, He said : 

" Peace, be still." 

The wind ceased, and there was a great calm. No 
sooner, amid the loudest din, does nature catch the well- 
known sound of her master's voice, than the tumult sub- 
sides ; in an instant all is quiet ; and, with a heave as 
gentle as an infant's bosom, and all heaven's starry glory 
mirrored in its crystal depths, the Sea of Galilee lies 
around that boat — a beautiful picture of the happy 
bosom into which Heaven and its peace have descended. 



172 JESUS. 

''Justified by faith," purchased by the blood of Christ, 
and blessed with His presence, ' ' we have peace with God 
through our Lord Jesus Christ." 

Now, those two natures which our Lord thus revealed 
on earth, He retains in Heaven. And as both, God and 
man, He occupies the throne of Grace, and the throne of 
Providence — holding under His dominion all worlds, and 
principalities, and powers ; for, in Him dwelleth all the 
fulness of the Godhead bodily, and He has been made 
Head over all things to the church. This must be so. 
He got the kingdom ; and, simply as God, there could be 
no addition made to his possessions. 

Simply as God, He could get nothing, because all 
things were already His. You cannot add to the length 
of eternity ; nor extend the measure of infinity ; nor 
make absolute perfection more perfect ; nor add one drop 
to a cup, nor even to an ocean, already full. 

And as, on the one hand, our Lord did not get this 
kingdom simply as God, neither, on the other hand, did 
He receive it simply as man. 

To suppose so, were to entertain an idea more absurd, 
more improbable, more impossible, than the fable of 
Atlas, who, according to wild heathen legends, bore the 
world on his giant shoulders. How could an arm that 
once hung around a mother's neck sustain even this 
world ? 

But He, who lay in the feebleness of infancy on Mary's 
bosom, and rested, a wayworn and weary man on Jacob's 
well, and, faint with loss of blood, sank in the streets of 
Jerusalem beneath the burden of a cross, now sustains 
the weight of this and of a thousand worlds besides. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 173 

It is told as an extraordinary thing of the first and 
greatest of all the Caesars, that such were his capacious 
mind, his mighty faculties, and his marvelous command 
of them, that he could at once keep six pens running to 
his dictation on as many different subjects. This may 
or may not be true ; but were Jesus Christ a mere man, 
in the name even of reason, how could He guard the in- 
terests, and manage the affairs of a people, scattered far 
and wide over the face of the habitable globe ? 

What heart were large enough to embrace them all ; 
what eyes could see them all ; what ears could hear them 
all ? Think of the ten thousand prayers pronounced in 
a hundred different tongues that go up at once, and alto- 
gether, to his ear ! 

Yet there is no confusion ; none are lost ; none missed 
in the crowd. Nor are they heard by Him as, standing 
on yonder lofty crag, we hear the din of the city stretched 
out far beneath us, with all its separate sounds of cries, 
and rumbling wheels, and human voices, mixed up into 
one deep, confused, hollow roar — like the boom of the 
sea's distant breakers. No ; every believer may feel as 
if he were alone with God — enjoying a private audience 
of the king in his presence-chamber. Be of good cheer. 
Every groan of thy wounded heart, thy every sigh, and 
cry, and prayer, falls as distinctly on Jesus' ear as if you 
stood beside the throne, or, nearer still, lay with John in 
His bosom, and felt the beating of His heart against 
your own. 

Jesus Christ, God and man for ever, what a grand and 
glorious truth ! How full of encouragement and comfort 
to those, like us, who have sins to confess, sorrows to tell 



174 JESUS. 



Him, and many a heavy care to cast upon His sympathy 
and kindness. Since Mary kissed His blessed feet, since 
Lazarus' tomb moved His ready tears, since Peter's cry 
brought Him quick to the rescue, since John's head lay 
pillowed on His gentle bosom, since a mother's sorrows 
were felt and cared for amid the bitter agonies of His 
dying hour, He has changed His place, but not His heart. 
True man and Almighty God — God and man for ever — 
believer, let Him sustain thy cares. Thy case cannot be 
too difficult, nor thy burden too heavy for One who guides 
the rolling planets on their course, and bears on His un- 
wearied arm the weight of a universe. 

Christ does not redeem us, as some say, by simply 
revealing the truth — save us by merely, as a prophet, 
showing the way of salvation. 

The pathways on the deep, along our rugged coasts, 
as well as our streets, are lighted ; and yonder, where the 
waters fret, and foam, and break above the sunken rock, 
the tall light-house rises. Kindled at sundown, it shines 
steady and clear through the gloom of night, warning the 
seaman at the wheel, of the danger he has to avoid, and 
showing him the course he has to steer. Now, he who 
reared that house and kindled its blessed light, and thus 
saves many a bark from shipwreck, many a sailor from 
a' watery grave, may be called a saviour. 

In one sense he is a saviour of all who, bravely 
ploughing their way through the black midnight over the 
stormy deep, hail that light as it rises on them like a star 
of hope — and, seeing it, know how to steer, to take the 
roads, to clear the bar, to beware the reef, and bring their 
bark in safety o the desired haven. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 175 

But if Christ is a Savior only in that sense simply be- 
cause He brought life and immortality to light, then He 
is not the only Savior. 

From the ' ' Sun of Righteousness " He changes into 
a star, and in that heaven, where He shone without a 
rival, He takes His place but among the luminaries of 
the church ; one of many, He is only a pure, and bright, 
and beautiful star, in that brilliant constellation, which 
is formed of Moses, the prophets — those seers, and sages, 
and inspired apostles, by whose voices and pens, in the 
days of old, God communicated His will to man. 

Many of those, indeed, who were inspired to reveal 
the will of God for the salvation of men, had more to do, 
instrumentally, in revealing that will than Jesus Christ. 
No book bears His name ; He wrote no epistle, and the 
the truths that actually dropped from His lips, so far as 
they are recorded, form but an insignificant portion of 
those Holy Scriptures which are our chart and charter. 
Yet, who but He is set forth as the Redeemer and Savior 
of sinners ? Where is Moses represented as such ? or 
David ? or Isaiah ? or Paul ? Where is it said, l ' Believe 
on Paul, and thou shalt be saved ? whosoever believeth 
on Paul or Peter hath everlasting life and shall never 
perish ?" 

To think that the same arm which rolled back the 
gates of the sea, aud stopped the wheels of the sun, for 
us, hung in feeble infancy around a mother's neck ; that 
the same voice which spake in Sinai's rolling thunders, 
for us, wailed feebly on Mary's bosom, and cried on the 
cross, "I thirst"; that the same august being who de- 
livered the law amid the majesty of Heaven, for us, died 



176 JESUS. 

to fulfill it amid the deepest ignominies of earth ; that 
He, before whom Moses did exceedingly fear and quake, 
and Joshua fell, and the holy prophet fainted, was that 
very same Jesus whose gentle manners won the confidence 
of childhood, and whose kind eye beamed forgiveness on 
a poor, frail, fallen woman, as she stooped to wash His 
feet with tears, and wipe them with the hair of her head; 
these things should exalt Jesus higher in our esteem, and 
endear Him more and more to our hearts. 

What a combination of grandest majesty, and most 
gentle mercy shines in this visible "Image of the invisi- 
ble God !" Surely He is worthy of your acceptance, and 
reverence, and love ! 

Who is this, that cometh from Edom, with dyed gar- 
ments from Bozrah ? this, that is glorious in His apparel, 
traveling in the greatness of His strength ? He comes ; 
hell flees His presence. He appears ; all the angels of 
God worship Him. He speaks ; the tempestuous sea is 
calm. He commands ; the grave gives up its dead. He 
stands on this sin-smitten world, "in praises, doing 
wonders ;" the visible image of an invisible God. 

Angels celebrate His advent, and attend His depar- 
ture — hovering alike over the manger of Bethlehem, and 
the crest of Olivet ; and when He has left the grave to 
ascend the throne, hark to the cry at the gate of Heaven, 
" Lift up your heads, O ye gates ; and be ye lift up, ye 
everlasting doors ; and the King of Glory shall come in.' 
Within, they ask, "Who is this King of Glory?" The 
gate rolls open, and, greeted with shout and song, the 
procession enters, as His escort answers, "The Lord of 
Hosts, He is the King of Glory." 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 177 

With such honors and gladness, may He be received 
into our hearts ! Holy Spirit, throw open their gates ! 
Jesus, ascend their throne ! that, holding Thee, whom 
Heaven holds, we may have a heaven within us ; and, 
washed in Thy blood and renewed by Thy Spirit, may 
present in ourselves — what sin has forfeited, but grace 
restores — a visible image of the invisible God. 

In His incarnate Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, God 
presents Himself to me in a form which meets my wants. 
The Infinite is brought within the limits of my narrow 
understanding ; the Invisible is revealed to my sight ; I 
can touch Him, hear Him, see Him, speak to Him. In 
the hand which He holds out to save me, I have what 
my own can grasp. In that ey,e bent on me, whether 
bedewed with tears, or beaming with affection, I see 
divine love in a form I feel and can understand. God 
addresses me in human tones ; God stands before me in 
the fashion of a man ; and, paradox as it appears, when 
I fall at His feet to say with Thomas, * • My Lord and my 
God, I am an image-worshipper, yet no idolater ; for the 
being before whom I bend is not a mere man, nor a 
graven image, nor a dead thing, but the living, loving, 
eternal, 'express image' of the 'invisible God.'" 

"Show us the Father," said Philip to our Lord. Had 
he said, " Cleave me that mountain, divide this sea, stop 
the sun, lay thy finger on the hands of time," he had 
asked nothing impossible ; nothing more difficult for Jesus 
than saying to a cripple, • ' Walk, " or to the dead, ' ' Come 
forth." 

Yet, impossible as was that for which Philip asked, 
since "no man hath seen God at any time, nor can see 



178 Jesus. 

Him," and strangely bold as was his request, it was fol- 
lowed by a happy issue. 

What clear testimony does our Lord's reply bear, both 
to His own divinity and to His Father's loving, pitifui, 
tender nature! "He that hath seen me, Philip," seen 
me weeping with the living and weeping for the dead, 
seen me receiving little children into my arms to bless 
them, seen me inviting the weary to rest, pitying all 
human suffering, patient under the greatest wrongs, en- 
couraging the penitent, and ready to forgive the vilest 
sinners, "he that hath seen me, hath seen the Father." 
In me, my character and works, you have a living, visi- 
ble, perfect "image of the invisible God." 

Now, whose footprint is that on the ground there be- 
fore the tomb of Lazarus ? Was it God or man that 
passed that way, leaving strange evidence of his presence 
in an empty grave ? 

There, the revolution of time has brought round 
again the days of Eden ; for, unless it be easier to give 
life to the dust of the grave than to the dust of the 
ground, the spectators of that stupendous miracle, who 
stood transfixed with astonishment, gazing on the dead 
alive, have seen the arm of God made bare ; and, from 
the very lips that cried, "Lazarus, come forth," have 
they heard the voice which said of old, "Let us make 
man in our image." 

Nay, a day of older date than Eden's has returned. 
To make something out of nothing is a work more visibly 
stamped with divinity than to make one thing out of an- 
other — a liviing man out of lifeless dust ; and ere our 
Lord left the world, he was to leave behind him, in an 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 179 

act, not of forming, but of creating power, the most visi- 
ble footprint and impress of the great Creator. 

The scene of it may be less picturesque, less striking 
to common eyes, than, when Jesus rose in the boat to re- 
buke the storm ; than, when leaving Galilee's shore to 
cross the lake, the waters sustained Him, and He walked 
like a shadowy spirit, upon the heaving billows ; than, 
when he stayed a funeral procession at the gate of Nain, 
and, going up to the bier, laid His hand on the corpse of 
the widow's son, and, changing death to life, left him 
folding her in his fond embrace ; yet, our Lord never ap- 
peared more "the express image of His Father," than on 
yonder green grassy mountain side. The calmness of all 
the scene, the meanness of the company, if you will have 
it so, the poverty of the fare, amid these accessories, that 
are but dull foils to the sparkling gem, Jesus stands forth 
in the glory of a Creator. 

At His will, the bread multiplies ; it grows in the 
hands of disciples ; five thousand men are filled to reple- 
tion with what had not otherwise satisfied five ; and, 
thing, unheard of before, the fragments of narrow circum- 
stances and a scanty table far exceed the original pro- 
vision. The materials of the feast filled one basket, but 
the fragments fill twelve. 

Who does not see the day of creation restored in that 
banquet ? In the author of this, the greatest of all His 
miracles, who does not see "the express image" of Him 
who made things that are out of things that were not, 
said of matter's first-born and purest element, "Let 
there be light ; and there was light ?" 

Looking at such cases, what else was to be expected 



180 JESUS. 

from the men of Nazareth, a place of proverbially bad 
repute, than that they should grudge Jesus His honors, 
and hate Him for His success ? He had emerged from the 
deepest obscurity into a fame that filled every mouth with 
His works, and embraced within its widening circle all 
the land. He had become famous ; and they had not. 
It did not matter that that was not His fault. They felt 
themselves grow less as He grew greater, and they could 
not brook that ; such as were stars among them, or 
wished to be thought so, were bitterly mortified to find 
themselves extinguished in the light of this rising sun. 
Therefore, they hated Christ, giving Him ground to com- 
plain, "A prophet is not without honor but in his own 
country, and among his own kin, and in his own house." 

Let me turu your attention to one occasion when this 
feeling, which had been grumbling like a pent-up volcano, 
burst forth most insolently, most offensively. 

Our Lord was teaching in the synagogue of Nazareth 
— teaching with that strange, wonderful, divine wisdom, 
which, in its very dawn, when the child was but twelve 
years old, astonished the gray divines and subtlest lawyers 
of the temple ; and which not only made unprejudiced 
hearers hang on His gracious lips, but compelled His 
enemies to confess, 

"Never man spake like this man." 

On the occasion to which I refer, envy gnawed, like 
a canker-worm, at the heart of His townsmen. What 
business had He to reach an eminence they might aspire 
to, but could never attain ? Hopeless of that, although 
they could not rise to His height, they might, perchance, 
pull Him down to their own level. They will try. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 181 

And so, at the close of His discourse, when we might 
have expected them to praise God for the wisdom that 
had dropped from His lips, and to congratulate Mary on 
her son, and their native town on an inhabitant whose 
name would render Nazareth famous to the latest ages, 
they cast about for something which, by detracting from 
His glory, might gratify their spleen. 

They had nothing to say against either the matter or 
the manner of the discourse ; both were perfect. Nor 
had they a whisper to breathe against the life and char- 
acter of the speaker. 

A circumstance worthy of note ! For it is one of the 
finest testimonies borne to our Lord's lofty and holy life, 
that the thirty years which he spent in a small town — 
where leisure always abounds, and scandal is often rife, 
and every man's character and habits are discussed in 
private circles, and dissected by many cutting tongues — 
did not furnish them with the shred of an excuse for 
whispering an ill word against Him. 

His life resembled a polished mirror, which the foulest 
breath could not stain, nor dim beyond a passing moment. 
What a noble testimony to Jesus Christ ! Holy, harm- 
less, undefiled, separate from sinners, envy found no way 
to vent its malace and spit its venom at him, but by a 
taunt, she drew from his humble origin and poor relatives. 
As if it were not an honor to rise above the circum- 
stances of our birth, as if a man's ascent by one step 
above his original condition — fairly, honestly, and hon- 
orably won — were not more a matter of just pride, than 
a descent traced from the proudest ancestry, they said, 
"Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother 



182 JESUS. 

of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon ? and are 
not his sisters here with us ? — whence, then, hath this 
man all these things ?" 

Extending from His early youth into the years of 
mature manhood, there is a great blank in our Lord's his- 
tory. Eighteen years of His life stand unaccounted for ; 
and that blank, looking as dark as the starless regions of 
the sky, tradition, usually so fertile in invention, has not 
attempted to fill out. 

How often have I wondered and tried to fancy what 
Jesus did, and how He passed the time between His boy- 
hood, when He vanishes from our sight, and His thirtieth 
year, when He again appears upon the stage to enter on 
His public ministry ? 

Thanks to His townsmen's envious sneer, or, rather, 
thanks to Him who permitted the insult, and thus has 
made the wrath of man to praise Him, their insolent 
taunt throws a ray of light into the deep obscurity. 

Their question, "Is not this the carpenter ?" not, as 
at another time, the carpenter's son, but the carpenter 
himself, suggests to us the picture of a humble home in 
Nazareth, known to the neighborhood as the carpenter's, 
and under whose roof of thatch Jesus resided with His 
mother — in all probability, then a widow, and, like many 
a widow since then, cheered by the love and supported 
by the labors of a dutiful son. I have no doubt that holy 
angels, turning their wings away from lordly mansions and 
the proud palaces of kings, often hovered over that peace- 
ful home, as still they, who are ministering spirits, sent 
forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salva- 
tion, do over the humblest abodes of piety. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 183 

But, so far as this world and its inhabitants were con- 
cerned, Jesus passed His days in contented obscurity, un- 
noticed and unknown, save to the neighbors, whose 
esteem he could not fail to win by his pure life, and gen- 
tle temper, and holy manners. He was to grow in favor 
with God and man. 

All Nazareth regarded Him as a paragon of human 
virtues, and many a mother pointed to Mary's son as the 
pattern, her own lads should copy. . 

How wonderful it is to transport ourselves back, in 
fancy, some eighteen hundred years, to that small town ; 
and, on asking, with the Greeks, to "see Jesus," to be 
conducted to a humble dwelling, where chips of wood, 
and squared logs, and unbarked trunks of trees lying 
about, in the oak, and olive, and cedar, and sycamore, 
that had fallen to His axe, point out, "the carpenter's." 

By the door, and under a bowering vine, which, 
trained beneath the eaves over some rude trellis-work, 
forms a grateful shade from the noon-day sun, a widow 
sits — her fingers employed in weaving, but an expression 
in her face and eye which indicates a mind engaged in 
far loftier objects, thoughts, deeper, holier, stranger, than 
a buried husband, and a widow's grief. 

She rises, lifts the latch, and, stooping, we enter that 
lowly door ; and there, bending to His work, we see the 
carpenter — in him the Son of the Most High God ! 

Time was, when He set His compass on the deep ; 

time was, when He stood and measured the earth ; and 

now, with line, and compass, and plane, and hatchet, the 

sweat dropping from His lofty brow, He, who made 

Heavenand Earth, and the sea, and all that in them is, 



184 JESUS. 

in the guise of a common tradesman, bends at a carpen- 
ter's bench. 

How low He stooped to save us ! 

The world was once astonished to see a king stoop to 
such work. The founder of the Russian empire left his 
palace and capital, the seductive pleasures and all the 
pomp of royalty, to acquire the art of ship-building in 
the dock-yard of a Dutch sea-port. He learned it that 
he might teach it to his subjects ; he became a servant 
that he might be the better master, and lay in Russia the 
foundations of a great naval power. Nor has his coun- 
try been ungrateful ; her capital, which bears his name, 
is adorned with a monument to his memory, massive as 
his mind ; and she has embalmed his deathless name in 
her heart and in her victories. 

Yet, little as many think of Jesus, lightly as they 
esteem Him, a far greater sight is here. 

There, in a king, becoming a subject, that his subjects 
might find in him a king, there was much for men ; but 
here, there is much for both, men and angels, to wonder 
at, and praise through all eternity. 

The Son of God stoops to toil. What an amazing 
scene ! Henceforth let honest labor feel itself ennobled; 
let no man, whatever rank he has attained, blush for the 
meanness of his origin, or be ashamed of his father's 
trade ; let the sons of toil lift their heads before the over- 
weening pride of birth or wealth, and feel themselves 
stand taller on the earth ; let the idle learn to do some 
good in this world, and turn their brains and hands 
to some useful purpose ; above all, let sinners behold 
a marvelous, most affecting exhibition of the condescen- 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 185 

sion and love of God. This carpenter of Nazareth is 
He whom the apostle calls "the first-born of every 
creature ;" and "by Him," he adds, "were all things 
created that are in Heaven, and that are in earth, visible 
and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or 
principalities, or powers ; all things were created by Him 
and for Him ; and He is before all things, and by Him 
all things consist." 

Let us now consider the meaning of this expression, 
"the first-born of every creature," and let me show 
what the expression does not and can not mean. 

The first born of every creature ! A strange expres- 
sion ! one which, seeming to assign to our Lord a place 
among creatures, sounds so strangely that, in some de- 
gree perplexed, we are ready to ask what the apostle can 
mean by applying such a questionable term to the eternal 
Son of God ? For, though he honors Him with the fore- 
most place, still he seems to place Him in the rank of 
creatures. 

Now, there are those who say that Christ was a mere 
man; and this expression, no doubt, cuts the ground out 
from below their feet. 

The first-born of every creature — these words, assign- 
ing to our Lord, at the very least, the highest place 
among the highest angels, do not leave the Socinian an 
inch of ground to stand on. But do they not, it may be 
asked, seem to countenance the Arian heresy — the doc- 
trine of those who hold that, although the highest and 
noblest of all created things, our Lord, notwithstanding, 
is still a creature ? Is it so ? Have we mistaken His 
true character ? Shall we find, in going to glory, that, 



186 JESUS. 



as ardent love is prone to do, we have exaggerated His 
excellences ; and that, while another occupies the throne 
of Heaven, Jesus is but the first in her noble peerage, 
the highest and oldest of her ancient nobility ? 

Even as being the first of creatures in point of rank 
and age, as one who dwelt with God when there was none 
other than Hf;nself, as one whose life dates back beyond 
the far remote period when seas first rolled, and stars 
shone, and angels sang, Jesus were an object, next to 
God, He were the object of our deepest interest. 

Yet, if our blessed Lord is only a creature, however 
great His power, exalted His rank, pure His nature, lofty 
His intellect, and incalculable the years of His age, I 
cannot trust Him with my soul ; I cannot depend on Him 
for salvation ; I cannot, dare not worship Him, nor over- 
leap this barrier, ' ' Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, 
and Him only shalt thou serve." 

Age, indeed, heightens the grandeur of the grandest 
objects. The bald, hoar mountains rise in dignity, the 
voice of ocean sounds more sublime on her stormy shores, 
and the starry heavens sparkle with brighter splendor, 
when we think how old they are; how long is it since that 
ocean began to roll, or those lamps of night to shine. 

Yet these, the first star that ever shone, nay, the first 
angel that ever sang, are but things of yesterday beside 
this manger, where, couched in straw and wrapped in 
swaddling clothes, a new-born babe is sleeping. 

" Before Abraham was," or these were, "I am," says 
Jesus. His mother's maker, and His mother's child, He 
formed the living womb that gave Him birth, and, 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS 6UTHRIE. 187 

thousand ages before that, the dead rock, that gave Him 
burial. 

A child, yet Almighty God ; a son, yet the everlasting 
Father, His history carries us back into eternity ; and the 
dignities which He left, those glories which He veiled, 
how should they lead us to adorn His transcendent love, 
and to kneel the lower at His cross to cry, " Jesus ! thy 
love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women, 
My soul does magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath re- 
joiced in God, my Savior." 

When Ulysses returned with fond anticipations to his 
home in Ithaca, his family did not recognize him. Even 
the wife of his bosom denied her husband — so changed 
was he by an absence of twenty years, and the hard- 
ships of a long-protracted war. 

It was thus true of the vexed and astonished Greek, 
as of a nobler King, that he came unto his own, and his 
own received him not. In this painful position of affairs 
he called for a bow which he had left at home, when, 
embarking for the siege of Troy, he bade farewell to the 
orange-groves and vine-clad hills of Ithaca. 

With characteristic sagacity, he saw how a bow, so 
stout and tough that none but himself could draw it, 
might be made to bear witness on his behalf. He seized 
it. To their surprise and joy, like a green wand lopped 
from a willow tree, it yields to his arms; it bends till the 
bow-string touches his ear. His wife, now sure that he 
is her long-lost and long-lamented husband, throws her- 
self into his fond embraces, and his household confess 
him the true Ulysses. 

If I may compare^small things with great our Lord 



188 JESUS. 

gave such proofs of His divinity when He, too, stood a 
stranger in His own house, despised and rejected by men, 
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. He bent 
the stubborn laws of nature to His will. He proved Him- 
self Creator by His mastery over creation; The winds 
that sweep the deep, and the free wild sea, they sweep, 
alike controlled, leprosy and shaking palsy healed, the 
rolling eye of madness calmed, the shrouded corpse and 
the buried dead restored to life by a word, calmly spoken 
after the manner and with the power of a master — these 
things leave one to wonder that the spectators did not 
fall down to worship; and, recognizing God in the guise 
of man, say, ' ' the voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice 
of the Lord is full of majesty." 

If nothing could be more sublime than that scene on 
the Lake of Galilee, when, tranquil in aspect, Jesus 
stood on the bow of the reeling boat, and while the 
storm played around, and the spray flew in white sheets 
over His naked head, calmly eyed the war of elements, 
and, raising His hand, said, " Peace, be still!" could 
anything be more conclusive than the evidence which 
these waves and winds afforded, that the Master Himself 
was come home ? No clearer shone the stars that night, 
mirrored in the placid waters. There, the wind lulled, 
and the wild waves at rest, deep silence spake. By that 
sudden hush, nature proclaimed Him God, Lord, Creator 
of all. 

Declared to be so by inspired tongues, and by such 
strange witnesses as winds and waves, devils, disease, 
death, and the grave— Heaven concurs in their testimony; 
6y the voices of her saints and angels, by their worship, 




Christ in The Temple. — From the Painting by Hoffman. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. THOMAS GUTHRIE. 189 

hymns, harps, and hallelujahs, proclaiming Him creator 
and Lord of all. 

Let us, in imagination, pass the angel guardians of 
those gates where no error enters, and, entering that 
upper sanctuary which no discord divides, no heresy dis- 
turbs, let us find out who worships, and who is worshipped 
there. 

The law, " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and 
Him only shalt thou serve," extends to heaven as well as 
to earth; so that if our Lord is only the highest of all 
creatures, we shall find him on his knees — not the 
worshipped, but a worshipper; and from his lofty, and 
lonely, and, to other creatures, unapproachable, pinnacle, 
looking up to God, as does the highest of the snow- 
crowned Alps to the sun, that, shining far above it, 
bathes its head in light. 

We have sought Him, I shall suppose, in that group 
where His mother sits with the other Marys, sought 
Him among the twelve apostles, or where the chief of 
apostles reasons with angels on things profound, or where 
David, royal leader of the heavenly choir, strikes his 
harp, or where the beggar, enjoying the repose of Abra- 
ham's bosom, forgets his wrongs, or where martyrs and 
confessors, and they which have come out of great tribu- 
lation, with robes of purest white, and crowns of bright- 
est glory, swell the song of salvation to our God which 
sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. 

He is not there. 

Rising upwards, we seek him where angels hover on 
wings of light, or, with feet and faces veiled, bend before 
a throne of dazzling glory. Nor is he there. He does 



190 JESUS. 

not belong to their company. Verily he took not on him 
the nature of angels. 

Eighteen hundred years ago Mary is rushing through 
the streets of Jerusalem, speed in her steps, wild anxiety 
in her look, one question to all on her eager lips, 

"Have you seen my son ?" 

Eighteen hundred years ago, on these same streets, 
some Greeks accost a Galilee fisherman, saying, 

u Sir, we would see Jesus." 

Now, were we, bent like his mother on finding, like 
these Greeks on seeing him, to stay a passing angel, and 
accost him in the words, "Sir, we would see Jesus," 
what would he do ? How would his arm rise, and his 
finger point us upward to the throne as he fell down to 
worship, and worshipping, to swell the flood of song 
which, in this one full stream, mingles the names of the 
Father, and of the Son — Blessing, and honor, and glory, 
and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, 
and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever. 

Such a glorious vision, such worship, the voices that 
sounded on John's ear as the voice of many waters, the 
distant roar of ocean, are in perfect harmony with the 
exalted honor, and divine offices, which Paul assigns to 
our Lord in the words : 

All things were created for Him. 

If our Lord Jesus Christ were other and less than 
God, then, in kindling yonder sun, in lighting up the 
starry sky, he no more acts for himself than the domes- 
tie does, who, appearing at my call, lights my lamp, or 
stoops on the hearth-stone to kindle my fire. It is the 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 191 

very nature of a creature to be a dependent, and hold a 
servant's place. 

Nor, as I read my Bible, was any man ever more 
justly condemned to die than Jesus, if he were but a 
man. 

In that case, he did undoubtedly lay himself open to 
the charge of blasphemy, since — as the Jews truly 
averred, and he never denied, nor so much as attempted 
to explain it away — he made himself the Son of God, 
" equal with God." 

No doubt our Lord did that; in such plain terms claim- 
ing divine equality, as to justify the use by Paul of this 
bold language : 

"He thought it not robbery to be equal with God.'' 

And, as the rainbow looks the brighter, the blacker the 
cloud, it spans, the majesty of His claim is brought out 
by the meanness of the circumstances in which it was 
made. 

Deserted by the world, a man of sorrows, and ac- 
quainted with grief, dependent on a few humble followers 
for the most common necessaries of life, within some 
hours of an ignominious end, his foot already on the 
verge of the grave, he rises to the loftiness of Godhead; 
and, turning an eye that was to be soon darkened in 
death on earth and in heaven, he claims a community of 
property with God. 

"All things," he says, "that the Father hath are 
mine." To the "all mine are thine," this dying man 
adds, " thine are mine." 

He speaks to God. Thine, thy eternity, thy throne, 
thy glory, thy crown, thy sceptre, all are mine. 



192 jugus. 

Great words, pregnant with the strongest consolation 
and most glorious truths ! For, if in the very nature of 
things, all that is God's is Christ's, and, according to the 
terms of the New Covenant, all that is Christ's is ours, 
these words draw everything that belongs to God into 
the hands of the humblest believer ! 

What a faith is that ! What comfort should it give 
you ! What courage should it impart to you ! What 
gratitude should it beget in you ! Rich amid poverty, 
full in emptiness, and in weakness strong, with what 
blessed peace may the believer lie in God's arms, saying 
with David, " I will fear none evil" ; or with Paul, as he 
addresses himself to work or war, ' ' I can do all things 
through Christ which strengtheneth me." 

If philosophy is to be believed, our world is but an 
outlying corner of creation ; bearing, perhaps, as small 
a proportian to the great universe, as a single grain bears 
to all the sands of the sea-shore, or one small, quivering 
leaf to the foliage of a boundless forest. 

Yet, even within this earth's narrow limits, how vast 
the work of Providence ! How soon is the mind lost in 
contemplating it ! How great that Being whose hand 
paints every flower, and shapes every leaf ; who forms 
every bud on every tree, and every infant in the darkness 
of the womb ; who feeds each crawling worm with a 
parent's care, and watches like a mother over the insect 
that sleeps away the night in the bosom of a flower ; who 
throws open the golden gates of day, and draws around 
a sleeping world the dusky curtains of the night ; who 
measures out the drops of every shower, the whirling 
snow-flakes, and the sands of man's eventful lite ; jvho 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 193 

determines alike the fall of a sparrow and the fate of a 
kingdom ; and so over-rules the tide of human fortunes, 
that whatever befall him, come joy or sorrow, the be- 
liever says, * ' It is the Lord ; let Him do what seemeth 
Him good." 

In ascribing this great work to Jesus Christ, my text 
calls you to render Him divine honors. In the hands 
that were once nailed to the cross, it places the sceptre 
of universal empire ; and on those blessed arms that, 
once thrown around a mother's neck, now tenderly en- 
fold every child of God, it hangs the weight of worlds. 

Great is the mystery of godliness ! Yet so it is, plain- 
ly written in the words, "By Him all things consist." 
By Him the angels keep their holiness, and the stars 
their orbits ; the tides roll along the deep, and the sea- 
sons through the year ; kings reign, and princes decree 
justice ; the church of God is held together, riding out at 
anchor the rudest storms ; and by Him, until the last of 
His elect are plucked from the wreck, and His purposes 
of mercy are all accomplished, this guilty world is kept 
from sinking under a growing load of sins. 

" By Him all things consist." 

Wonderful words, as spoken of one who, some eight- 
een centuries ago, was a houseless wanderer, a pensioner 
on woman's charity, and not seldom without a place 
where to lay His head ! Yet how clearly do these words 
attest His dignity and divinity ? 

More could not be said of God ; and Paul will not 
say less of Christ. Nor, great and glorious as they are, 
do they stand alone. Certainly not. In language as 



194 . JESUS. 

lofty, and ascribing to Jesus honors no less divine, the 
apostle thus writes to the Hebrews : 

" God, who, at sundry times and in divers manners, 
spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath 
in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom He 
hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made 
the worlds ; who, being the brightness of His glory, and 
'the express image of His person,' and upholding all 
things by the word of His power, when He had by Him- 
self purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the 
Majesty on high ?" 

How wonderful ! He left a grave to ascend the 
throne ; He exchanged the side of a dying thief for the 
right hand of God ; He dropped a reed to assume the 
sceptre of earth and heaven ; He put off a wreath of 
thorns to put on a sovereign's crown ; and, in that work 
of providence to which I would now turn your attention, 
you behold Him, who died to save the chief of sinners, 
made " Head over all things to the church." 

Great is the mystery of godliness ! The most precious 
mystery is the greatest of all mysteries. Neither in 
man, nor in angel, nor in any other creature, is there 
such a combination of what appears irreconcilable 
properties, and harmonizing of what seems discordant, 
such blending and bringing together of the peculiar 
characteristics of distinct and different orders, as in * * the 
mystery of godliness." 

In His person, and character, and work, our Lord 
Jesus Christ presents what is explicable, and, to my 
mind, credible, on no theory but one, that He was God 
manifest in the flesh, Emmanuel, God with us. Indeed, 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 195 

I should find it, I think, an easier thing to deny the 
divinity of the Bible, than, having admitted that, to 
reject the divinity of our Lord. To illustrate this ex- 
traordinary conjunction of apparently conflicting elements 
found in Him: 

i. Look at our Lord by the grave of Lazarus. How 
truly man, partaker of our common nature ! The sight 
of the tomb wakens all His grief ; the sufferings of these 
two sisters, clinging to each other, touch His loving heart; 
and there He stands, forever sanctioning sorrow, and 
even exalting it into a manly, most noble thing. His 
eyes swim in tears, groans rend his bosom ; He is so 
deeply, so uncontrollably, so visibly affected, that the 
spectators say, " See how He loved him !" Jesus wept. 
So it was some moments ago. But now, what a change ! 
The crowd retreats, surprise, wonder, terror seated on 
every face ; the boldest recoiling from that awful form 
which comes shuffling out of the grave. This man of 
tears, so gentle, so tender, so easily moved that he often 
wept, endured with a sensibility so delicate that the strings 
of his heart vibrated to the slightest touch, has, by a 
word, rent the tomb. Struck with terror, the witch of 
Endor shrieked when she saw the form of Samuel emerg- 
ing from thfc ground ; what a contrast, this scene to that ! 
Not in the least surprised at the event, as if, in raising 
the buried dead, he had done nothing more remarkable 
than light a lamp or rekindle the embers of an ex- 
tinguished fire, calm and tranquil, Jesus points to Laza- 
rus, saying, "Loose him, and let him go." 

2. Look at Jesus by Jacob's well. There a woman 
who had come to draw water about mid-day, finds a 



196 JESUS. 

traveler seated. She looks at him. He is brown with 
the dust of a journey ; he looks pale and worn, and 
weary ; the hot sun beats upon his head. He accosts 
her, saying, "Give me to drink" And in granting it — 
for women seldom refuse kindness to the needy — she 
fancies, no doubt, that this is some poor Jew, whose 
haughty pride bends to necessity in asking the meanest 
favor from a Samaritan. So he seemed, when, grate- 
fully acknowledging her kindness, he bent his head, and 
drank deep draughts of the cool, refreshing water. But, 
when he has raised his eyes to look, not into her face, 
but into her heart, and to read off, as from a book, its 
most secret thoughts, and, although they had never met 
before, to tell her all, to use her own words, that she had 
ever done, with what wonder does she regard him ? She 
is amazed and awed. 

Well she might. The thirsty, way-worn man has 
suddenly changed into the omniscient God. 

Thus the incommunicable attributes of Divinity, and 
the common properties of humanity, stand out equally 
clear in our Lord's life and person. 

And just such a conjunction of things apparently 
irreconcilable presents itself to our attention in the 
description given of Jesus Christ in this verse. 

In this clause, He is described by a term sacred to 
God ; we pass on to the next, and step at once from the 
throne of the heavens down into a grave. In these 
words, ' ' the beginning, " we behold Him presiding at the 
creation of the universe ; by those which follow, "the 
first-born from the dead," we are carried in fancy to a 
lonely garden, where, all quiet within, Roman sentinels 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 197 

keep watch by a tomb, or where, as they fly in pale 
terror from the scene, we see Him who had filled the 
eternal throne, and been clothed with light as with a 
garment, putting off a shroud, and leaving a tomb. 
What key is there to this mystery, what possible way of 
harmonizing these things, but this, that Christ, while 
man, was more than man, one who has brought together 
properties so wide apart as dust and divinity, time and 
eternity, eternal Godhead and mortal manhood ? What 
comfort to us, as well as glory to Him, in this combina- 
tion ! Should it not dissipate every care and fear, to 
think that our Savior, friend, and lover, has the heart of 
a brother and the hand of God ? 

He must be God who is almighty. He must be God 
who is, and was, and is to come ; and since ' ' the begin- 
ning" is another title applied to that passage to the same 
august, and infinite, and adorable Being, by applying it 
to our Lord, Paul pronounces Him divine, and around 
the head which was once pillowed on a woman's bosom, 
and once bowed in death upon a cross, he throws a halo 
of uncreated glory. A man, worshipped in Heaven ; a 
babe, adored on earth; the infant's advent, sung by angels; 
sable night throwing off her gloom, and breaking into 
splendor above his manger-cradle ; one whom many well 
remembered, as if it were but yesterday, carried in Mary's 
arms or playing with the boys of Nazareth, now claim- 
ing to be older than Abraham ; his step on the water 
lighter than a shadow's, his voice on the water mighty as 
God's ; the prompt obedience of unruly elements ; the 
sullen submission of reluctant devils, as they retired 
back, and farther back, before that single man, like a 



198 JESUS. 

broken band retreating in the face of an overwhelming 
force ; the hand that was nailed to the cross freely dis- 
pensing crowns of glory, and opening the gates of Heaven 
to a dying thief ; the earth trembling with horror, and 
the sun turned mourner because they were murdering 
their Lord ; the adoring admiration of the great apostle, 
who, contemplating an infant cradled in a manger, a man 
hanging on a bloody tree, a tomb and its lonely tenant, 
found heaven too low, and hell too shallow, and space 
too short, to set forth the greatness of the love that gave 
the Savior to die for us ; these marvels, otherwise utterly 
inexplicable, have their key in "the mystery of godli- 
ness; " Jesus Christ was "God manifest in the flesh." 

What a precious truth ! 

The blood of Calvary being, as Paul calls it, the 
blood of God, may well have virtue in it to cleanse from 
all sin, so that though our sins be as scarlet, they shall 
be white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they 
shall be as wool. 

A house, again, begins at the foundation. The first 
stone laid is the foundation stone. That may be sunk 
in a deep, dark hole ; yet, though it lies there, unseen 
and forgotten by the thoughtless, it is the stability and 
support of all the superincumbent structure. 

And when the nails were drawn, and the mangled body 
of our Lord was lowered from the cross, and received 
into woman's arms, and borne without any funeral pomp 
by a few sincere mourners to the lonesome tomb, and, 
amid sobs, and groans, and tears, and bitter griefs, laid 
in that dark sepulchre, then did God in Heaven say: 






BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 199 

" Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation stone, a tried 
stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation." 

Yes, it was a tried stone. He had been tried by men 
and devils, and by his Father, too ; hunger, and thirst, 
and suffering, and death, had tried him. 

Since then, the foundation has often been tried, in 
great temptations, and sore afflictions, and fierce assaults 
of the Evil One ; winds have blown, and rains have fallen, 
and rivers have swelled, and heavy floods have rolled, 
but the man who has believed in Christ, and the hopes 
that have rested on his finished work, have stood firm 
and unmoved. 

Saints triumphing over temptation, martyrs singing 
in prison, believers dying in peace, devils baffled, hell 
defeated, have made good Christ's words, ' ' Upon this 
rock I will build my church ; and the gates of hell shall 
not prevail against it." 

The author of our faith, the founder of his church, 
Christ began it ere the world began, or sun or stars shone 
in heaven. He had the life-boat on the beach before the 
bark was stranded, or launched, or even built. 

Not eighteen hundred years ago, when the cross rose, 
with its bleeding victim, high above the heads of a crowd 
on Calvary, not the hour of the Fall, when God descended 
into the garden to comfort our parents, and crush, if not 
then the head, the hopes of the serpent, but eternal ages 
before these events saw the beginning of the church of 
Christ. He began it in the councils of eternity, when, 
standing up before his Father, to say; "Lo, I come (in 
the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy 
will, O God," he offered himself a substitute and a 



200 JESUS. 

sacrifice for men. He was "the Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world." 

There is no sensibility in the dead. The eyelids, your 
fingers have closed, open no more to the light of day. 
The morning raises up all within the house to a fresh 
sense of bereavement ; without, it wakens business, 
pleasure, the music of skies and groves ; but it wakens 
not the sleeper in that locked and lonely chamber, who, 
once dreading to be left alone, is alike fearless now of 
darkness and of solitude. 

There is no passion in the dead. The sight of them 
affects us, not our grief and sorrow them ; as well kiss 
marble as that icy brow ; our tears will flow, nor does 
Christ forbid them ; but their hotest gushes thaw not the 
fountains that death has frozen. 

There is no power in the dead. The cold hand, you 
lift, drops ; the poor body lies as it is laid. And, so soon 
as that last, long sigh is drawn, though the color still 
lingers on the cheek, and the limbs are not yet stiffened 
into cold rigidity, they can rise no more than the ashes 
on the hearth can resume their original form, and change 
into what once they were, a branch green with leaves, 
and decked with fragrant blossoms. The dead can do 
nothing to help themselves. 

In all cases but Christ's resurrection, life was not re- 
sumed, but restored ; it was given, not taken back. At 
the grave of Lazarus it proceeded from Christ's lips, 
wafted on the air to the ear of death. 

At the gate of Nain it passed from Christ's hand, 
streaming, like the electric fluid, into the body of the 
widow's son. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS.— THOMAS GUTHRIE. 201 

And there, where Elisha lies stretched on the Shu- 
nammite's dead boy, his eyes on the child's eyes, his 
hands on the child's hands, his lips on the child's lips, 
that prostrate, praying man forms a connecting medium 
by which life flows out of Him in whom is its fullness, 
to fill a vessel that death has emptied. 

And, at the last day, we ourselves shall not awake, 
but be wakened, roused from sleep by the trump of God, 
as, blown by an angel's breath, it sounds throughout the 
world, echoing in the deepest caves of ocean, and rend- 
ing the marble of the tomb. 

Now, look at our Load's resurrection. He rose in the 
silent night : no hand at the door, no voice in his ear, no 
rough touch awakening Him. Other watchers than 
Philate's soldiers stood by the sepulchre ; but these 
angels, whom it well became to keep guard at this dead 
man's chamber door, beyond opening it, beyond rolling 
away the stone, beyond looking on with wondering eyes, 
took no part in the scenes of that eventful morning. 

The hour sounds ; the appointed time arrives. Having 
slept out his sleep, Jesus stirs ; he awakes of his own ac- 
cord ; he rises by his own power ; and arranging, or leav- 
ing attending angels to arrange, the linen clothes, he 
walks out of the dewy ground, beneath the starry sky, 
to turn grief into the greatest joy, and hail the breaking 
of the brightest morn that ever rose on this guilty world. 
That open, empty tomb assures us of a day when ours, 
too, shall be as empty. 

Having raised himself, he has power to raise his 
people. Panic-stricken soldiers flying the scene, and 
Mary rising from His blessed feet to haste to the city, to 



202 JESUS. 

rush through the streets, to burst in among the disciples, 
and, with a voice of joy, to cry, 

•« He is risen ! He is risen ! " 
prove this was no vain brag or boast, "I lay down my 
life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from 
me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it 
down, and I have power to take it again." 

The child of the Shunammite, the daughter of the 
ruler, the widow of Nain's son Lazarus, and all the saints 
who followed our Lord from the grave, were prisoners 
on parole. The grave took them, bound to return. 
Dear-bought honors theirs ! 

While Enoch and Elijah never tasted death, these 
twice drank the bitter cup; with one cradle each had two 
coffins; one birth, but two burials; and thus, that God 
might be glorified, suffering pains from which obscure 
saints have been exempt, they in part fulfilled the noble 
saying of that dauntless martyr, who declared his love 
for Christ to be such, that if he had as many lives as he 
had gray hairs on his head, he would lay them all down 
for Him. 

These honored ones were out on bail. 

After a while they retraced their steps; and, now 
lying in dusty death, they wait the summons of the resur- 
rection. But Jesus waits to summon, not to be sum- 
moned. The grave holds them, but Heaven holds Him. 
For Heaven, as well as hell, was moved at His coming; 
and there, saints adoring, angels worshipping at his feet, 
in the very body which was stretched on the cross and 
laid in the sepulchre for us, he fills his Father's throne. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 203 

The King of kings, and Lord of lords is "He who liveth 
and was dead." 

It is better for me, if I am a poor man standing in 
need of royal favors, to have a friend at court than ik 
my own humble cottage; and it is better for us that Christ 
is with his Father in Heaven than with his people on 
earth. "It is expedient for you," he said, "that I go 
away. " 

He has gone to prepare a place for us; and while his 
Spirit has come down to take care of the business of his 
church on earth, he looks after and watches over its 
affairs in Heaven. 

He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. 
So, after three days unbroken rest, he rose to sleep no 
more, and be the first-born of the dead. Apart from 
that, precedence was his right. It belonged to him in 
the very nature of things. The king precedes his train; 
the head rises first out of pit or grave, afterward the 
body and its members; the foundation stone is laid first, 
afterward the stones of the superstructure; the eldet 
brother breaks first from a mother's womb, afterward the 
children of whom he is forerunner. 

It is as the prelude of our own resurrection, that 
Christ's is to us the object of the greatest satisfaction 
and joy. In these cast-off grave clothes, in that linen 
sbroud and napkin, there is more to draw our eyes, and 
fix our interest, and move our admiration, than in the 
jewelled robes or royal purple of the greatest monarch of 
earth. 

That empty tomb, roughly hewn in the Kock, is a 
greater sight than Egypt's mighty pyramids, or the 



204 JACOB. 

costliest sepulchres that have received the ashes of the 
proudest kings. How full of meaning is its very empti- 
ness ! 

What good news to us in Mary's disappointment ! 
What joys flow to us in these women's tears ! Thanks 
be to God, they could not find him. He is not there. 
No, Mary ! they have not taken away your Lord ; no 
robber has rifled that sacred tomb. See, the dew lies 
sparkling on the grass, no feet have brushed it but those 
of one who has left the grave. He is risen ; and, 
as the first fruits of them that sleep, as the first ripe 
sheaf that was offered to the Lord, his resurrection is the 
pledge and promise of a coming harvest. Henceforth 
the grave holds but a lease of the saints. Because he 
rose, we shall rise also. 



JACOB. 



To-morrow Esau and Jacob are to meet. 

fhere was a quarrel of long standing between them, 
Wtds had all the bitterness of a domestic feud . 

Jac^b had foully deceived and deeply injured his 
brother. He had not seen Esau for many years, and, 
dreading !ais vengeance, he now heard of his approach, 
at the he&cj of four hundred men, with fear and tremb- 
ling. 

Greatly *Urmed, he cried, ' ' God of my father Abra- 
ham, God of *uy father Isaac, deliver me, I pray thee, 




Mary, Mother of Jesus.. 
From a Photograph of the Character in the Passion Play. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 205 

from the hand of my brother; for I fear him, lest he will 
come and smite me, the mother with the children." 

Pattern to us when temptation threatens, or dark 
misfortunes lower, Jacob, having done all that man's 
wisdom could devise, or his power could do in the cir- 
cumstances, flies for help to God. He will prepare for 
to-morrow's trial by a night of prayer. 

Sending off his wives and children across Jabbok's 
stream, to place them as far as possible out of danger 
and leave these innocent ones to forget it in sleep's sweet 
oblivion, he seeks himself as olitary spot,. 

With daepest silence all around him, and the bright 
stars above his head, he is on his knees alone with God. 
Suddenly, as if he had approached with the stealth of a 
creeping savage, or had sprung from out of the ground, 
some one grasps him. 

Folded in his arms, Jacob cannot cast him off. Now 
it becomes a struggle for the mastery. Locked together, 
they wrestle in the dark; they bend; they try each to 
throw the other; and, in some mysterious commingling 
of bodily and spiritual wrestling, the night passes, and 
the conflict lasts till break of day. 

" Let me go," said the other, whose eye had caught 
the gleam of morning, « ■ for the day breaketh. " 

Jacob but held him faster. He had found out the 
other wrestler; danger gave him boldness; faith gave him 
confidence; and, clinging to God with the grasp of a 
drowning man, he replied, " I will not let thee go, unless 
thou bless me. " And when he had prevailed, and got the 
blessing, Jacob called the name of the place Peniel; "for 
I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. " 



206 ADAM. 



ADAM. 

Then, there are living as well as dead images. 

And as a Christian's life, without any occasion for his 
lips telling it, should proclaim him to the world a child 
of God, so I have known an infant bear such striking re- 
semblance to his father, that what his tongue could not 
tell, his face did; and people, struck by the likeness, 
remarked of the nursling, "He is the very image of his 
father." 

Such was Adam, in his state of innocence. 

Endowing him with knowledge, righteousness, and 
true holiness, God made good His words : 

" Let us make man in our own image." 



JOSHUA. 



What a godlike action of Joshua's on that battlefield, 
when he met, and where he conquered five kings in fight ! 
God fought for him in hailstones, and he fought for God 
with swords; and no more than devils of hell could stand 
before us, did prayer always summon heaven to our aid, 
could mortal man stand before such onslaught — " Kings 
of armies did flee apace ;" that day five crowns were lost. 
But, apparently, a most inopportune event, ere Joshua 
has reaped the fruits of his victory, the sun, emerging 
from the dark hail-cloud, has sunk low in the sky. His 
burning wheels touch the crest of Gibeon, while the pale 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 207 

moon, marshaling on the night to protect the flying 
enemy, is showing her face over the valley of Ajalon. 

Joshua sees, that, as has happened to other con- 
querors, darkness will rob him of the prize; nor leave 
anything more substantial in his hand than a wreath of 
laurel, the honors of the day. 

Inspired for the occasion, he lifts his bloody sword to 
the heavens, he commands their luminaries to stop; and 
when, like high-mettled coursers which, knowing their 
masters' hand, instantly obey the rein, the sun and moon 
stand still, stand motionless in the portentious sky, how 
grandly does he stand there, a visible image of God ? 

Yet, where is Joshua, or Moses, or Elijah, or Paul, or 
Peter, or any of all the servants by whom Jehovah 
wrought such wonders in the days of old, called an * * im- 
age of the invisible God ?" 

Where are these men set forth as mysteries ? 

Where are they represented as ' ' God manifest in the 
flesh?" 

Of which of them did God himself say, ■ ' Let all the 
angels of God worship him ?" 

A blind superstition may worship them; but yonder, 
where Moses bends the knee by the side of Mary Magda- 
lene, and Joshua bows low as Rahab, and Paul sings of 
the mercy that saved in himself the chief of sinners, 
they worship Jesus, as in His double nature, both God 
and man; a visible manifestation of the invisible; "the 
only begotten of the Father ; " distinguished from all 
other images, whether impressed on holy angels or on 
sainted men, as "the express image cf His person." 

Herein lies the amazing breadth, and length, and 



208 MOSES. 



depth, and height, of the love of God; for you he gave 
that image to be broken — shattered by the hand of death. 
Blessed be His name, He died, the just for the unjust, 
'-hp-.t we night be saved. 



MOSES. 



Now, see how Moses, the meekest, noblest, most 
generous of men was envied by ambitious spirits among 
the children (A Israel ! 

" Ye take too much upon you," they said to him and 
his brother, seeing all the congregation are holy, every 
one of t^cm, and the Lord is among them ; wherefore, 
then, lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the 
Lord ? 

Ay, and even his own brother and sister grew jealous 
of him. On pretence of his having done wrong in 
marrying an Ethiopian woman, they who should have 
supported the brother to whom they owed their position, 
most basely and ungratefully attempted to undermine his 
influence. It was very wrong in Moses to make this 
marriage — to enter into such an unsuitable alliance ; so 
they said to the multitude. 

Yet mere dust and smoke that, which they raised to 
cover their real motives and base ends. The envy, from 
whose evil eye no excellence is a protecting charm, and 
which, rending asunder the most sacred ties, refuses to 
spare a brother, was at the bottom of the discontent. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 209 

For, while Aaron and Miriam held such language to 
the people, masking their selfish passions under a fair 
pretence of patriotism and piety, listen to them in their 
tent, how different their language to each other, "Hath 
the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses ? hath He not 
spoken also by us ?" 



GOD. 

The doctrine of the being of a God. 

I do not need to open the Bible to learn that. It is 
enough that I open my eyes, and turn them on that great 
book of nature, where it is legibly written, clearly re- 
vealed on every page. 

God ! that word may be read in the stars and on the 
face of the sun; it is painted on every flower, traced on 
every leaf, engraven on every rock ; it is whispered by 
the winds, sounded forth by the billows of ocean, and 
may be heard by the dullest ear in the long-rolling 
thunder. 

I believe in the existence of a God, but not in the 
existence of an atheist ; or that any man is so, who can 
be considered in his sound and sober senses. 

What should we think of one who attempted to ac- 
count for any other works of beauty and evident design, 
as he professes to do for those of God ? 

Here is a classic temple ; here stands a statue, de- 
signed with such taste and executed with such skill, that 



210 GOD. 

one almost expects the marble to leap from its pedestal ; 
here hangs a painting of some dead beloved one, so life- 
like as to move our tears ; here, in Iliad, or Mneid, or 
Paradise Lost, is a noble poem, full of the grandest 
thoughts, and clothed ins ublimest imagery ; here is 
a piece of most delicate, intricate, and ingenious 
mechanism. 

Well, let a man tell me gravely, that these were the 
works of chance ; tell me, when I ask who made them, 
that nobody made them ; tell me, that the arrangement 
of the letters in this poem, and of the colors in that 
picture, of the features in the statue, was a matter of 
mere chance ; how I should stare at him ? and conclude, 
without a moment's hesitation, that I had fallen into the 
company of a raving madman, or of some drivelling 
idiot. 

Turning away from such atheistic ravings about the 
infinitely more glorious works of God, with what delight 
does reason listen, and with what readiness does she 
assent, and with what distinct and hearty voice does she 
echo the closing words of the seraphim's hymn, "the 
whole earth is full of His glory ! " 

Some talk as if we were saved just because Christ 
paid our debt, representing God's share in the transac- 
tion as little else than that of a severe, stern, unrelent- 
ing creditor, who takes no interest in his imprisoned 
debtor beyond letting him out when the surety has taken 
up the bond. 

Is this true ? Is it fair to God ? True ? It is utterly 
false. Salvation flows from a higher source than Calvary. 
It has its foundation, not in the cross of the incarnate 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 211 

Son, but in the bosom of the eternal Father. These 
hoar hills, with their time-furrowed brows, that ocean, 
which bears on its face no mark of age, those morning 
stars, which sang together when our world was born, 
these old heavens, are not so old as the love of God. 

It dates from eternity. Eternal ages before the Law 
was given, or broken, or satisfied, he loved us. The 
central truth of the Bible, that on which I lay the 
greatest stress and rest my strongest hopes, is this, that 
God does not love us because Christ died for us, but that 
Christ died for us because God loved us. 

I do not disparage the work of Christ ; far be such a 
thought from me. Yet Christ himself is the gift of divine 
love, the divine expression of our Father's desire to be 
reconciled. The Lord of angels hanging on a mother's 
bosom, the Creator of heaven and earth bending to a 
humble task, the judge of all standing accused in the 
place of common felons, the Son of his Father's love 
nailed amid derision to an ignominious cross, death rude- 
ly seizing him, the dark grave receiving him, we owe to 
the love of God. God so loved the world, that he gave 
his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life. What love 
do we owe Him who so loved us. 



JOB. 

Job's history furnishes a notable example. 
Satan has gone forth from the presence of the Lord, 
armed with this commission : Behold, all that he hath is 



212 JOB. 

in thy power ; only upon himself put not forth thy hand. 
The devil can never go a step further against the saints 
than God chooses to give him chain. 

That is great comfort. 

Yet, how ruthlessly, how pitilessly, how maglignantly 
the Enemy of man used his power on this occasion, you 
know. The gallant ship that, with songs below, and gay 
dances on her deck, was sailing on a summer day over a 
glassy sea, in her sky no portentous clouds, in her snowy 
sheets but wind enough to waft her home, and of which, 
by nightfall, the only vestiges are some broken timbers, 
afloat in the foam, that the wild waves are grinding on 
the horrid reef, presents -a striking image of the change 
that one short, eventful day brought on the house and 
fortunes of this man of God. 

One, following hard upon another, like successive 
shocks of an earthquake, the messengers of disaster 
come. Ruin, ruin, is on their lips, as, pale with terror, 
panting for breath, they arrive with their tidings, and 
doleful echo, that ever-recurring close of the woful tale, 
" I only am escaped alone to tell thee." 

Cattle, flocks, camels gone, all his property sunk, 
Job is a beggared man. 

Yet, his children are safe ; and with seven gallant 
sons, and three fair daughters, he still is rich. These 
spared, let all else perish. But, ah ! the next wave, 
towering, cresting high over head, falls on his laboring 
bark, and, sweeping the deck clean, leaves none stand- 
ing there but himself and a frantic mother ; nor is theirs 
the consolation of the mother, who, reaching the shore 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 213 

with her living babe, presses it to her bosom, and holds 
herself compensated for all other losses. 

They are dead, cries the last messenger ; they are 
dead, and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. 

Dead ? We almost expect to see himself fall dead ; 
stunned, killed by this crowning, this overwhelming stroke. 
But no. Greatest of heroes, spectacle for angels to ad- 
mire, pattern for believers to imitate in the hour of their 
most adverse fortunes, he arose and worshipped — arose, 
as the ball which rebounds the higher, the harder it is 
struck ; as the eagle which reaches her loftiest flight, not 
in serene, but in tempestuous skies. Owning the Provi- 
dence in whose hand Sabean and Chaldean, fiery thun- 
derbolt and roaring whirlwind, were only instruments, 
Job bows before the throne of God, and says, with a 
patience more uncommon even than his trials, " Naked 
came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I 
return thither ; the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken 
away ; blessed be the name of the Lord." 

Sins, like seeds, lie dormant till circumstances call 
them into active existence. Aware of that, Satan knew 
right well what he was saying when, in reply to God's 
praise of his servant Job, he said, with a sneer, "Doth 
Job fear God for naught ? Hast thou not made an hedge 
about him, and about his house, and about all that he 
hath on every side ? thou hast blest the work of his 
hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But 
put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and 
he will curse thee to thy face. " 

And so the good man had done, but for restraining 
grace. What a burst of pent-up passion, like the fiery 



214 JOB. 

eruption of a volcano, breaks the seven days' awful 
silence, ' ' Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the 
night in which it was said, * There is a man child con- 
ceived ; let that day be darkness. ' Why died I not from 
the womb ? Why did the knees prevent me ? Where- 
fore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto 
the bitter in soul ; which long for death, but it cometh 
not ; and dig for it more than for hid treasures ; which 
rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they can find the 
grave ?" 

Here Job curses the day that he was born ; and he 
who curses God's providence has to take but another 
step, and he curses God himself. But that a divine arm 
had borne his burden, but that a divine hand curbed his 
passions, that woman, raging like a bear bereaved of her 
whelps, would have had no occasion to reproach him for 
his tame submission. No. He had vented curses, if not 
as loud, perhaps, like the river where it flows sullen and 
black, more deep than hers ; and, standing side by side 
over a grave big with bodies and with grief, they had 
raised their hands together against the heavens, and flung 
back their life at him who had embittered it. 

But for the grace of God, Job had been no pattern 
of patience. 

And let the grave, which both sustained and re- 
strained him, be withdrawn from any of us, and our 
natural enmity and corruption would break out after 
such a fashion as would astonish ourselves, shock the 
ears of the public, and leave many to hold up their 
hands to exclaim : "Lord, what a man i " 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 215 

ABSALOM. 

On the other hand, look at Absalom ! 

What winning manners, what grace and beauty, how 
much of all that in form and features pleases the eye and 
ministers to the pride of life, are united in that man to 
the greatest moral baseness ! as if God would show us in 
how little esteem he holds what he threw away on so 
bad a man ; as if he intended to rebuke the silly vanity 
which worships at a mirror, and feeds on charms that 
shall feed the worms of the grave. 

Nor is his the only case where a fair form has lodged 
a foul heart, and crimes of treachery and murder have 
stained the hands of beauty. 



SAMSON, 



On the other hand, it was, at least in some respects, 
a weak head that stood on the broad shoulders of 
Samson ! 

Whom the Philistines could not subdue, a woman 
conquered, binding with her charms one whom they 
could not bind with their chains. 

He fell before the influence that in Solomon's case 
made the wisest the most foolish of men. 

God says, ' ' In vain the net is spread in the sight of 
any bird " ; yet see how Samson walks straight in, 
snared by a cunning, transparent to all eyes but his own. 
Enslaved by animal passions, asleep in Delilah's traitor- 



216 QUEEN ESTHER. 



ous lap, a fettered captive in the hands of the Philistines, 
there he lies, a great lion in the hunter's net ; reminding 
us, by way of contrast, of the words, " Wisdom is better 
than strength; wisdom is better than weapons of war." 



QUEEN ESTHER. 

Within the palace, but without the throne-room of 
Shushan, Queen Esther stands. 

They who enter the king's presence unsummoned, do 
it at the risk of their life ; and resolved in a good cause 
to dare the penalty, she stands there with her jeweled 
foot upon the grave. 

A noble spectacle ! not so much for her unrivalled 
beauty, still less for the splendor of her apparel, as for 
the resolution to venture life, and either save her nation 
or perish in the attempt. 

In her blooming youth, in the admiration of the 
court, in the affections of her husband, in her lofty rank, 
in her queenly honors, she has everything to make life 
attractive. Hers is a golden cup ; and it is foaming of 
pleasure to the brim. But her mind is made up to die ; 
and so, with a silent prayer, and "if I perish, I perish," 
on her lips, she passes in, and now stands mute and 
pallid, yet calm and resolute outside the ring of nobles, 
to hear her doom. 

Nor has she to endure the agony of a long suspense. 
Her fate, which seems to tremble in the balance, is soon 
determined. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 217 

No sooner does the monarch catch sight of the beauti- 
ful woman, and brave and good as beautiful, whom he 
had raised from slavery to share his bed and throne, thai' 
her apprehensions vanish. 

The clouds break ; and she finds, as we often do with 
Christ, that her fears have wronged her Lord. 

Instantly his hand stretches out the golden sceptre ; 
the business of the court is stopped ; the qv>een, the 
queen ! divides the crowd of nobles ; and up rhat bril- 
liant lane she walks in majesty and in chaims that out- 
vie her gems, to hear the blessed words, "What wilt 
thou, Queen Esther ? and what is thy request ? It shall 
be even given thee to the half of the kingdom." 



PAUL. 

The sufferings and misery which awaits the impeni- 
tent and unbelieving, God has painted in most apalling 
colors. 

To save us from them, his Son left the heavens and 
died on a cross. 

When Paul thought of these he wept like a woman. 
A dauntless man, who shook his chain in the face of 
kings — whose spirit no sufferings could subdue, and whose 
heart no dangers could appall — who stood as unmoved 
amid a thousand perils as ever rock amid a thousand 
billows — he could not contemplate these without the 
deepest emotion ; his tears fell fast and thick upon the 
page where he wrote, ' ' of whom I have told you often, 



218 PAUL. 

and now tell you even weeping, whose God is their belly, 
whose end is destruction." 

To compare small things with great, something like 
this — but unspeakably nobler and greater — God works in 
salvation. For example — In John Bunyan he calls the 
bold leader of village reprobates to preach the gospel ; a 
blaspheming tinker to become one of England's famous 
confessors ; and from the gloomy portals of Bedford jail, 
to shed forth the luster of his sanctified and resplendent 
genius to the farther limits of the world, and adown the 
whole course of time. From the deck of a slave ship 
he summons John Newton to the pulpit ; and by hands, 
defiled with Mammon's most nefarious traffic, he brings 
them that are bound out of darkness, and smites adaman- 
tine fetters from the slaves of sin. In Paul, the Apostle 
of the Gentiles, he converts his Son's bitterest enemy 
into his warmest friend. To the man whom a trembling 
church held most in dread, she comes to owe, under God, 
the weightiest obligations. 

In Paul she has her boldest champion, her greatest 
logician, the most gallant of her defenders, her grandest 
preacher, the prince of apostles, the largest contributor 
to this imperishable volume. 

How much better for these three stars to be shining 
in heaven, than quenched in the blackness of darkness. 
Better for the good of man — better for the glory of God. 
In them, and in all the sainted throng around them, has 
not God more illustriously displayed His power, than if 
He had crushed them by the thunders of His vengeance, 
and buried them in the depths of hell ? 

The power of Divinity culminates in grace. Ok, tfeat 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 219 

we may become its monuments, and be built up by the 
hands of an eternal Spirit, to the glory of the cross ! 

And why not ? Look at these men ! Think what 
they were ; behold what they are ! and, addressing your 
prayers to Him whose ear is never heavy that it cannot 
hear, nor His hand shortened that it cannot save, be this 
your earnest, your urgent cry, ' ' Awake, awake, put on 
strength, O arm of the Lord. Awake, as in the ancient 
days in the generations of old." 

More wonderful than this, however, is it to see where 
the grace of God will live and grow. Tender exotic ! 
plant brought from a more congenial clime ! one would 
suppose that it would require the kindliest nursing and 
propitious circumstances ; yet, look here — A Daniel is 
bred for God, and for the bravest services in His cause, 
in no pious home of Israel ; he grows in saintship amid 
the impurities and effeminacy of a heathen palace. 

Paul was a persecutor, and is called to be a preacher 
— was a murderer and becomes a martyr ; once, no phari- 
see so proud, now, no publican so humble. Like those 
fabled monsters, which, sailing on broad and scaly wings, 
descended on their helpless prey with streams of fire 
issuing from their formidable mouths, he set off for 
Damascus, "breathing out threatenings and slaughter 
against the disciples of the Lord." 

Jesus descended in person to meet this formidable 
persecutor, and selected him for His chiefest apostle. 
He bids him wash the blood of Stephen from his hands, 
and go preach the gospel. And where afterwards has 
this very man some of his most devoted friends ? where, 
but in Caesar's household. 



220 PAUL. 

What can more strikingly express the power of all- 
sufficient grace than the words of John Newton ? One 
asked him whether he thought the heathen could be con- 
verted. 

"I have never doubted," he said, " that God could 
convert the heathen, since He converted me." 

Paul, the man, in labors more abundant, in stripes 
above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths of — 
Paul, the martyr, thrice beaten with rods, once stoned, 
thrice shipwrecked, in journeyings often, in perils of 
waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by his countrymen, 
by the heathen, in the city, in the wilderness, on the sea 
— Paul, the penitent sufferer for Christ, of a life of weari- 
ness, and painfulness, and watchings, hunger, thirst, 
fastings, cold, nakedness — Paul even stood alarmed, lest 
he himself should be a castaway. ''The righteous 
scarcely are saved." The busiest in praying, watching, 
working, fighting, are no more than saved. O then, "if 
the righteous scarcely are saved, where shall the ungodly 
and the wicked appear ?" 

Paul said, "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a 
desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better ; 
nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for 
you." He judged it best for himself to go, for others 
he judged it best to stay. And there are few nobler 
sights than to see that man, with his foot on the door- 
step of heaven, return to throw himself in the very 
thick of battle, and spend and be spent in his Master's 
work. The crown of martyrdom often within his reach, 
he drew back a hand that was eager to grasp it. He 
took as much care of life as the coward guilt that is 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — THOMAS GUTHRIE. 221 

afraid to die. He was not impatient of the hardships, 
wounds, and watchings of the warfare, so long as he 
could serve the cause of Jesus. It was sin, not suffer- 
ing, that he felt intolerable ! and which wrung from him 
the bitter cry, « ' O, wretched man that I am ! who shall 
deliver me from this body of death ?" 

His a Savior's spirit, he chose rather that Christ 
should be glorified through his labors on earth, than that 
he himself should be glorified with Christ in heaven. 

And, so long as he had a tongue to speak for Jesus, 
and an arm to hold high above the battle's tumult, the 
banner of the faith, he was willing to work on — not im- 
patient for death and his discharge. His was a higher 
and more heroic wish than to get to heaven. He wished 
to make a heaven of earth ; and, persuaded that nothing 
could separate him from the love of God, or, finally, from 
heaven, believing that all which God had said of him he 
would do for him, and knowing that, though the vision 
tarried, it would come, he possessed his soul in patience 
p.nd peace — waiting for the Lord. 



MOSES, 



Propped upon pillows, bending on his staff, panting 
lor breath, speaking in brief and broken sentences, by 
those groping hands that felt for Ephraim's and Manasseh's 
head, betraying the stone-blindness of a great old age, 
Jacob gave biasing to the twelve sons, who all — uncom- 
mon fortune ir. 50 large a family — survived their parent, 



222 MOSES. 



and were themselves the fathers of the living millions, 
now swarming beneath the eye of Moses. 

But how different the bearing and aspect of Moses 
from that of the hoary patriarch ! 

An old man ! if not as old a man, of age not much 
short of Jacob's ! One hundred and twenty years had 
passed on his head, but they had neither bleached his 
beard nor thinned his locks, nor drawn a wrinkle on his 
lofty brow ; that eye had lost none of its fire, nor that 
arm any of its force, since the day when, striking in for 
a brother's cause, be bestrode a prostrate Hebrew, and, 
parrying the blow of the Egyptian, gave it back, like a 
battle-axe, on his head. 

Nearly the same age as Jacob, whose bent and ven- 
erable appearance, as he entered, leaning on Joseph's 
arm, led Pharaoh to ask, " How old art thou ?" 

Moses bore himself erect, and looked the same as on 
the day, forty years before, when he strode into Pharaoh's 
hall, and demanded of an angry king that the Hebrews 
should go free. The sun that went down in the evening 
of summer's longest day, sunk as full and bright, as if it 
had set at noon ; ' ' his eye was not dim, nor was his 
natural strength abated." His life closed amid the rich 
glories of the noblest address that grace, genius, patriot- 
ism, and piety ever uttered. 

Standing on some rocky platform, with his back to 
the sky, and his face to the people, Moses delivered an 
address never forgotten, and that for long ages continued 
to sound its trumpet echoes into the ears, and to breathe 
courage into the hearts of Israel. He blessed the tribes 
in succession, and — charged with inspiration, as a cloud 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. —THOMAS GUTHRIE. 223 

with lightning — he bursts forth at the close into these 
glowing exclamations — " There is none like unto the 
God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heavens in thy 
help ; thy shoes shall be iron and brass ; and as thy days, 
so shall thy strength be. The eternal God is thy refuge, 
and underneath are the everlasting arms." 

Jordan gleamed in his eye, and, stretching out his 
arms to the land across its flood, he cried — " Israel then 
shall dwell in safety alone ; the fountain of Jacob shall 
be upon a land of corn and wine ; his heaven shall drop 
down dew. Happy art thou, O Israel ; who is like unto 
thee, O people saved by the Lord ?" 

Glorious words to the Hebrews ! and most glorious 
in Christian eyes. Faith claims them as part of her in- 
heritance, and, looking on that mighty multitude as the 
dying type of a never-dying church, serves us heirs of 
entail to the spiritual blessings which lay concealed be- 
neath the vail of these earthly promises. 



WOMAN, 



Furnished with clasping tendrils, and strong by the 
attachments which they form, the woodbine and ivy 
wind their arms around the tree, embrace it closely, and 
rising to its lofty boughs, and clinging to its rough bark, 
they give ornament and beauty — a vesture of soft green 
spangled with flowers — in return for the support they 
get. 

Like these, woman, with her strong and warm affec- 



224 WOMAN. 



tions — gentle, loving, confiding — is prone to attach her- 
self to a nature stronger than her own, and to lean on it 
for support. 

And, whether it be that she is from this peculiar dis- 
position less opposed to the faith which looks to an- 
other's righteousness and leans on another's strength, 
certain it is there is more religion among women than 
men. 

If, on accouut of the elevation and high position 
which it has given her in Christian countries, woman 
owes much to religion, religion in turn owes most to her. 
You tell me that ' ' by woman came sin ?" I know it ; but 
I set off this against the fact — by woman came the Savior. 
Jesus was a virgin's child. And, more than that, in those 
days when He walked this world, women were His 
trustiest, kindest friends. 

Whoever betrayed, denied, deserted Him — they never 
did. The nearest to His cross, and earliest at His 
sepulcher, they were faithful when others were faithless, 
and gave ready promise of that devotedness to His cause, 
which their sex in all ages have honorably and pre- 
eminently displayed. 

Go through our Christian households, and, I will 
venture to say, that you will find more women than men, 
more wives than husbands, more sisters than brothers, 
who are living under the influence of religion. Many 
more children are to be found, who refer their earliest, 
deepest religious impressions to a mother's than to a 
father's piety. 



LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT. 2 25 



LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT. 



Lead, kindly Light, 

Amid the encircling gloom, 
Lead thou me on, 
The night is dark, 

And I am far from home. 
Lead thou me on, 

Keep thou my feet, 
I do not ask to see 

The distant scene; 
One step enough for me. 

I was not ever thus, 

Nor prayed that thou 
Shouldst lead me on ; 

I loved to choose and see my path ; 
But now Lead thou me on. 
I loved the garish day, 

And spite of fears, 
Pride ruled my will, 

Remember not past years. 

So long thy power hath blessed me, 

Sure it still will lead me on, 
O'er moor and fen, 
O'er crag and torrent, 

Till the night is gone. 
And with the morn 

Those angel faces smile, 
Which I have loved long since, 

And lost awhile, 



DESCRIBED IN METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, 
LONDON, ENGLAND, BY 

C. H. SPURGEON, 



ABRAHAM. 



Abraham had no prestige cf parentage, rank, or title. 
If you had looked at the stately patriarch when he trod 
the plains of Mamre you would have seen about him a 
presence, a calm dignity, a truly regal manner ; but that 
came to him solely through his faith in God and his 
communion with heaven. Abraham was distinguished 
from other men only by the grace of God. What grander 
difference can there be than that which is established by 
the existence of faith in the heart ? Thus Abraham was 
in the fullest sense a lone man, unsupported by any of 
those outward distinctions which enable some men to do 
more than others. 

I cannot help asking your attention to the fact that 
Abraham was not only a man called from heathendom, 
one man, and a lone man ; but he was a man who had to 
be stripped yet further. The blessing was — " Surely 
blessing, I will bless thee, and multiplying, I will multiply 
thee," but the manifest fulfillment of it was not by-and- 
by. He must come away from his kindred and his 

226 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 227 

father's house, and he must dwell in Palestine till th« 
promised seed was born. 

But how long he waited for the expected heir ! 

Twenty, yes, almost thirty years rolled away, and 
the man, Abraham, was ninety years old and nine. 

He is very old, and yet he is to be blessed with a son. 
He must number the full tale of a hundred years before 
Isaac can be born. 

. This promised child was to be according to promise, 
and, therefore, it could not be born till nature was recog- 
nized as spent. As for Sarah — it was not possible that 
she should become a mother at her advanced age, and 
yet it must be so, for God had said it. 

The believing pair had waited on till, in an evil hour, 
Sarah suggested a desperate attempt to fulfill the promise, 
in which she still firmly believed. That artifice broke 
down ; it was part of the divine plan that it should do so. 
The covenant promise was not to the seed after the flesh. 
When that scheme had been set aside, the Lord in his 
own time fulfilled his word. 

Joy ! joy ! in the house of Abraham and Sarah. 

What a feast there was that Isaac was born, filling 
the house with laughter. 

But he must die ! 

"Get thee up," said God, "and take thy son, thine 
only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and offer him for a 
burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will 
tell thee of." 

The grand old man will do it. He will get up early 
in the morning, and the father and the son will journey 
together silently ; for the, aged heart is too full to talk. 



228 ABRAHAM. 



#e believes God, and is sure that even if he should 
actually slay his son at God's command the promise 
would somehow be kept. 

Abraham could not tell how, but it was no business 
of his to tell how ; he was fully persuaded that, what God 
had promised, he was able to perform. 

God had said to him, "In Isaac shall thy seed be 
called," and he believed that God could raise Isaac from 
the dead, or in some other way achieve the promise. 

Thus he grasped the resurrection. He laid hold of a 
truth which was deeper than he knew of ; by his faith he 
realized resurrection for Isaac, though as yet the Lord 
Jesus had not shown the way by his own rising from the 
dead. 

What a stripping Abraham had endured ! Who can 
describe what would have been the wretchedness of that 
aged parent if it had not been for his faith ! Men in- 
tensely love the children of their old age. See how a 
grandchild is fondled by his grandsire, and thus must 
Isaac have been loved by Abraham ; and yet he must die 
by his father's own hand. 

Oh, most miserable among the miserable must he 
have been who stood there on Mount Moriah, called to 
such a duty, his heart breaking while his soul obeyed. 
Such, doubtless, would have been the case had not faith 
been his stay. 

Look, then, to Abraham, your father, and say, is he 
not the greatest of men, the grandest human representa- 
tive of the great Father God himself, who, in the full- 
ness of time, spared not his own Son, but freely delivered 
him up for us all ? 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 229 

Likest to God among mortal men art thou, Abraham, 
and therefore well mightest thou be his friend ! In thy 
trial, brought to such a stripping, we may yet envy thee 
as we hear the Lord saying, u Now know I that thou 
fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine 
only son, from me." 

Now, if in all these trials Abraham was yet blessed, 
and God's purpose was accomplished in him, can we not 
believe that the same God can work by us also, despite 
our downcastings and humiliations ? 

When we are utterly broken and crushed, may not 
the Lord's strength be made perfect in our weakness ? 
Let us not question the promise because of our personal 
deadness and inability, but believe God without waver- 
ing, for he hath said, " My grace is sufficient for thee." 

With great brevity, I shall dwell for a moment upon 
the second point, namely — The main characteristic of 
this ehosen man. The text says, ' ' Look unto Abraham, 
your father, and unto Sarah that bare you, " and it must 
mean, — consider him and see what he was, that you may 
learn from him. You perceive at once that his grand 
characteristic was his faith. In this faith many other 
most brilliant qualities are comprehended, but his faith 
lay at the bottom of all. 

Here is his epitaph : ' ' Abraham believed God. " 

That was the mainspring of all his acts, the glory of 
his life, ' ' Abraham believed God. " 

The men that God will work by, whatever else they 
have not, must have faith in God. Though it is to be 
desired that the believer should have every mental and 
moral qualification, yet it is astounding how, if there be 



230 ABRAHAM. 



real faith, a multitude of imperfections are swallowed up, 
and the man is still a power. 

Brethren, because we are the seed of Abraham, the 
apostle declares that the blessing of Abraham has come 
upon us also. I pray that all the friends and laborers in 
our Missionary Society may grasp the blessing of Abra- 
ham. What is it ? It is a covenant favor that belongs 
to all who are the servants of God by faith. 

Here is the substance of it : * ' Surely blessing, I will 
bless thee, and in multiplying, I will multiply thee." 

That is the grand old covenant promise, and it belongs 
to the church. Note that the blessing is attended with 
multiplying. Some friends are afraid of statistics which 
represent the increase of the churches ; I am far more 
afraid of those statistics which will show that we do not 
increase as we could wish. The blessing of the church 
is the increase of the church. The two go together : 

"Blessing, I will bless thee, and in multiplying, I will 
multiply thee. " 

. How much are Christians to be multiplied in the 
world ? At the present time we do not seem to be in- 
creasing as fast as the population. I am afraid that the 
number of converted persons relatively to the population 
is scarcely as great as it was thirty years ago; we long to 
be multiplied at a very different rate from this — and we 
shall be if we have faith in our God. 

Hear ye the covenant word: "Look now toward 
heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number 
them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And 
in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 231 

— — — I II I I I II U. i H . 1 ■ . . . ... . . .. . . 1^1 

These are the lines from the covenant, which is sure td 
all the seed, and can never be broken. 

We have been called and blessed, and it is of neces- 
sity that we increase also. We are bound to increase; 
we are destined to overrun the nations* the Hittites, the 
Hivites, the Amorites, of Popery, Mahometanism, and 
Idolatry are in the land, but their false systems are 
utterly to perish. 

Jesus, at the head of his people, drive them out — I 
mean not the men, but their evil beliefs. They may 
take notice to quit, for He is coming, before whom all 
men must bow. O that ere He himself shall appear His 
spiritual presence in the midst of his church might suffice 
for victory, that all mankind might call Him blessed. 

We are bound to increase, till the wilderness and the 
solitary place shall be glad for us, and the desert shall 
rejoice and blossom as the rose. Upon the church, in 
her vigor, shall yet descend the blessings of the tribes of 
Joseph. ■ ■ His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, 
and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them 
he shall push the people together to the ends of the 
earth." The success of truth is the battle of the Lord, 
and the increase of his church is according to his own 
promise, therefore in quietness we may possess our souls. 



ADAM. 



We never find Adam afraid of God, or any mani- 
festation of Deity while he was in Paradise an obedient 



232 ADAM. 

hi Mi i - - 1 i 

creature, but no sooner had he touched the fatal fruit 
than he found that he was naked, and hid himself. 

When he heard the voice of the Lord God, walking 
in the garden in the cool of the day, Adam was afraid, 
and hid himself from the presence of the Lord God 
amongst the trees of the garden. 

Sin makes miserable cowards of us all. See the man 
who once could hold delightful converse with his Maker, 
now dreading to hear his Maker's voice, and skulking in 
the grove like a felon, who knows his guilt, and is afraid 
to meet the officers of justice. 

Our Lord Jesus Christ is in some senses more man 
than Adam. Adam was not born ; Adam never had to 
struggle through the risks and weaknesses of infancy; he 
knew not the littlenesses of childhood — he was full grown 
at once. Father Adam could not sympathize with me 
as a babe and a child. 

But how man-like is Jesus ! He is cradled with us in 
the manger ; he does not begin with us in mid-life, as 
Adam, but he accompanies us in the pains, and feeble- 
ness, and infirmities of infancy, and he continues with 
us even to the grave. 

Beloved, this is such sweet comfort. He that is God 
this day was once an infant ; so that if my cares are little 
and even trivial, and comparatively infantile, I may go 
to Him for He was once a child. 

Though the great ones of the earth may sneer at the 
child of poverty, and say, * * You are too mean, and your 
trouble is too slight for pity ;" I recollect with humble 
joy, that the King of heaven did hang upon a woman's 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 233 

breast, and was wrapped in swaddling bands, and there* 
fore I tell Him all my griefs. 

How wonderful ! that He should have been an infant, 
and yet should be God over all, blessed for ever ! I am 
not afraid of God now ; this blessed link between me and 
God, the holy child of Jesus, has taken all fear away. 



BALAAM. 



Balaam — "I have sinned," — Numbers xxii. 34. 

Now, for a second text. I beg to introduce to you 
another character — the double-minded man, who says, 
•'I have sinned," and feels that he has, and feels it deep- 
ly, too, but who is so worldly-minded that he ' • loves the 
wages of unrighteousness." 

The character I have chosen to illustrate this, is that 
of Balaam. 

Turn to the book of numbers, the 22 nd chapter and 
the 34th verse : " And Balaam said unto the angel of the 
Lord, I have sinned." 

"I have sinned," said Balaam; but yet he went on 
with his sin afterward. One of the strangest characters 
of the whole world is Balaam. I have often marvelled 
at that man; he seems really in another sense to have 
come up to the lines of Ralph Erskine — 

•' To good and evil equal beet, 
And both a devil and a saint." 

For he did seem to be so. At times no man could 



234 BALAAM 



speak more eloquently or more truthfully, and at other 
times he exhibited the most mean and sordid covetous* 
ness that could disgrace human nature. 

Think you see Balaam; he stands upon the brow of 
the hill, and there lie the multitudes ot Israel at his feet; 
he is bidden to curse them, and he cries, 

"How shall I curse whom God hath not cursed ?" 

And, God opening his eyes, he begins to tell even 
about the coming of Christ, and he says, "I shall see 
Him, but not now; I shall behold Him, but not nigh." 

And then he winds up his oration by saying: " Let 
me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end 
be like his !" 

And ye will say of that man, he is a hopeful charac- 
ter. Wait till he has come off the brow of the hill, and 
you will hear him give the most diabolical advice to the 
king of Moab which it was even possible for Satan him- 
self to suggest. 

Said he to the king : ' ' You cannot overthrow these 
people in battle, for God is with them; try and entice 
them from their God. " 

And you know how, with wanton lusts, they of Moab 
tried to entice the children of Israel from allegiance to 
Jehovah; so that this man seemed to have the voice of 
an angel at one time, and yet the very soul of a devil in 
his bowels. He was a terrible character; he was a man 
of two things, a man who went all the way with two 
things to a very great extent. 

I know, the Scripture says, * ' No man can serve two 
masters." 

Now, this is often misunderstood. Some read it, " No 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURSEON. 235 

man can serve two masters." Yes he can; he can serve 
three or four. The way to read it is this : * ' No man 
can serve two masters." 

They cannot both be masters. He can serve two, 
but they cannot both be his master. A man can serve 
two who are not his masters, or twenty either; he may 
live for twenty different purposes, but he cannot live for 
more than one master purpose — there can only be one 
master purpose in his soul. 

But Balaam labored to serve two; it was like the peo- 
ple of whom it was said, ' ' They feared the Lord, and 
served other gods." Or, like Rufus, who was a loaf of 
the same leaven; for you know old King Rufus painted 
God on one side of his shield, and the devil on the other, 
and had underneath the motto : " Ready for both; catch 
who can." 

There are many such, who are ready for both. They 
meet a minister, and how pious and holy they are; on 
the Sabbath they are the most respectable and upright 
people in the world, as you would think; indeed, they 
effect a drawling in their speech, which they think to be 
eminently religious. 

But on a week day, if you want to find the greatest 
rogues and cheats, they are some of those men who are 
so sanctimonious in their piety. 

Now, rest assured that no confession of sin can be 
genuine, unless it be a whole-hearted one. It is of no 
use for you to say, "I have sinned," and then keep on 
sinning. 

"I have sinned," say you, and it is a fair, fair face 



236 BALAAM. 



you show; but, alas! alas ! for the sin you will go away 
and commit. 

Some men seem to be born with two characters. I 
remarked when in the library at Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge, a very fine statue of Lord Byron. The librarian 
said to me, "Stand here, sir." I looked, and I said, 
1 ' What a fine intellectual countenance ! What a grand 
genius he was !" " Come here," he said, " to the other 
side." "Ah! what a demon! There stands the man 
that could defy the deity." He seemed to have such a 
scowl and such a dreadful leer in his face; even as Milton 
would have painted Satan, when he said : "Better to 
reign in hell than serve in heaven." I turned away, and 
said to the librarian, " Do you think the artist designed 
this?" "Yes," he said, "he wished to picture the two 
characters — the great, the grand, the almost superhuman 
genius that he possessed, and yet the enormous mass of 
sin that was in his soul." 

There are some men here of the same sort. I dare 
say, like Balaam, they wonld overthrow everything in 
argument with their enchantments; they could work 
miracles; and yet at the same time there is something 
about them which betrays a horrid character of sin, as 
great as that which would appear to be their character 
for righteousness. 

Balaam, you know, offered sacrifices to God upon 
the altar of Baal; that was just the type of his character. 
So many do; they offer sacrifices to God on the shrine of 
Mammon; and whilst they will give to the building of a 
church, and distribute to the poor, they will at the other 
door of their counting-house grind the poor for bread, 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 237 

and press the very blood out of the widow, that they 
may enrich themselves. Ah ! it is idle and useless for 
you to say, <4 I have sinned," unless you mean it from 
your heart. That double-minded man's confession is of 
no avail. 



CHRIST. 



"Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for 
thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth 
for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod 
of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's 
vessel." — Psalms ii. 8, 9. 

Observe, dear friends, the wonderful contrast be- 
tween the violent excitement of the enemies of the Lord, 
and the sublime serenity of God himself. He is not 
disturbed, though the heathen so furiously rage, and their 
kings and mighty ones set themselves in battle array. 

He smiles at them; he hath them in derision. You 
and I are often downcast and depressed, and our fore- 
bodings are dark and dismal, but God sits in his eternal 
peacefulness, and serenely overrules tumult and rebellion. 
The Lord reigneth, and his throne is not moved, nor his 
rest broken, whatever may be the noise and turmoil 
down below. 

Notice the sublimity of this divine calm. 

While the heathen and their princes are plotting and 
planning how to break his bands asunder, and cast his 
cords from them, he has already defeated their devices, 



238 CHRIST. 



and he says to them, " Yet have I set my king upon the 
holy hill of Zion." 

" You will not have my Son to reign over you, but 
nevertheless he reigns. While you have been raging I 
have crowned Him. Your imaginations are indeed vain, 
for I have forestalled you, and established him upon his 
throne. Hear him as he proclaims my decree, and asserts 
his filial sovereignty. " 

God is ever beforehand with his adversaries; they find 
their scheming frustrated, and their craft baffled, even 
before they have begun to execute their plans. By God's 
decree the ever blessed Son of the Highest is placed in 
power, and exalted to his throne. The rules cannot 
snatch from his hand the sceptre, nor dash from his head 
the crown: Jesus reins and must reign till all enemies 
are put under his feet. God has set him firmly upon 
Zion's hill, and raging nations cannot cast him down; 
the very idea of their so doing excites the derision of 
Jehovah, he disturbs not his great soul because of their 
blustering. 

As if it were a banquet rather than a conflict, the 
Lord God, as himself a king, speaks to the King's Son, 
even to his Anointed on his right hand, and having 
owned his royal rank, confers upon him the highest 
honors. At great feasts many a monarch has been 
known to say to his favorite, * ' Ask what I shall give 
thee and nothing shall be denied thee this day." 

Even thus doth the great Father say to his glorious 
Son, the Prince of Peace, ' ' Ask of me, and I will give 
thee the heathen, thine inheritance, and the uttermost 
parts of the earth, thy possession." 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 239 

He bids him open his mouth wide, and requests a 
boundless dominion. He will give him distant nations, 
yea, and the whole round earth to be his kingdom. 

It is in his wondrous nature as God-man Mediator 
that these words may be understood, for so the Apostle 
Paul evidently interpreted them. The mysterious sen- 
tence, ''Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten 
thee," may refer to the deep and secret truth of the 
eternal filiation of our Lord, whatever that may be; but 
Paul quotes it in the thirteenth Acts as referring to his 
resurrection. Here are his words, "And we declare 
unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was 
made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto 
us, their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; 
as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my 
Son, this day have I begotten thee." 

It is in resurrection power that Christ comes forth, 
and God gives to him to have dominion over the earth 
and all that is upon it. Because he liveth and was dead 
he hath the keys of hell and of death. By virtue of his 
humiliation he reigns. For the suffering of death, he is 
crowned with death and honor. The heavenly host pro- 
claim his worthiness to take the book and open its seven 
seals, singing, ' * For thou wast slain, and hast redeemed 
us to God by thy blood." 

He descended that he might ascend above all things 
and fill all things; he laid aside his glory that he might 
be crowned with this new glory and honor, and might 
have all things put under his feet as the Son of man. 

We speak, therefore, of Jesus Christ, the risen One, 
who once died, but has now risen from the tomb, and 



240 CHRIST. 



quitted this earth for the splendors of the New Jerusalem. 

Our conviction is that this same Jesus is to reign over 
the whole world. 

I shall not enter into the question whether this will 
be accomplished before his second advent, or will be the 
result of his glorious appearing. I should not like to 
assert that this consummation will be reached before his 
advent, for that might seem to militate against our duty 
to watch for his coming, which may be at any moment; 
on the other hand, I would not venture to assert that the 
gospel cannot be universally victorious before his com- 
ing, because I perceive that this opinion is a pillow for 
many an idle head, and is ruinous to the hopeful spirit 
of missionary enterprise. 

It is enough for me that a wide dominion will be given 
to our Lord at some time or other, and that assuredly his 
kingdom shall embrace all the nations of mankind. 

The whole earth shall yet be filled with His glory; the 
seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head and 
clear the world of his slimy trail. 

To me, it is evident beyond all contradiction that 
according to the whole run of Scripture the kingdom of 
Christ is to extend over all parts of the earth, and over 
all races and conditions of men, and, therefore, I charge 
you never despair for the grand old cause. 

An infidel notion is abroad that these different re- 
ligions have sprung up at different times as developments 
of the religious instinct, and that they may all profitably 
exist side by side with ours. 

It is admitted that the religion of Christ is excellent, 
and that it deserves a large following, but still, other 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 241 

religions have their advantages and must not be despised; 
nay, something better than the gospel of Christ may yet 
be discovered. 

This is the current talk in certain circles, and we 
would at once express our horror at it. 

Jesus is not to share a divided throne. 

Cast ye with abhorrence from your souls every such 
blasphemous thought. 

Jesus must reign till all enemies are put under His 
feet, and to Him all rivals are enemies. If Jesus be 
King, He is the only Potentate. Christians are enlisted 
under a banner which does not brook another standard 
side by side with it, they serve a prince who will not 
share his dominion with others, who will not submit that 
even a province shall be rent away from his government. 
He shall reign for ever, King of kings, and Lord of lords. 
Hallelujah ! Like a burst of thunder, let all hearts that 
love Him say, Amen. 

It appears from our text that this universal dominion 
is to be asked for. Thus saith the Father to His glori- 
ous Son, " Ask of me, and I will give thee." 

Beloved, Jesus fails not to ask. We do not doubt 
that he responds to the Father's invitation, and asks for 
his inheritance. This is the way in which the psalm be- 
fore us touches upon the priestly character of Christ as 
combined with his kingly office. He even liveth to in- 
tercede, and a part of his daily intercession is to ask that 
the heathen may he his inheritance. 

Now, beloved, this is a lesson to us. We belong to 
Christ ; we are m*«' beis of that body of which he is the 



242 CHRIST. 



mystical Head, and it is ours to act with him in his life- 
work; as he asks, we are to ask with him. 

As Jesus suffers in His people, so He pleads in them. 

Let us cry day and night unto God for the coming 
and kingdom of our Lord. Let the throne of the 
Highest be surrounded by our perpetual prayers. Let 
as urge for the Lord Jesus his suit in the courts above, 
that the heathen may be his inheritance, and the utter- 
most parts of the earth his possession. 

We are so truly one with him that his sympathies 
and hopes are ours; his glory is our glory, his victory our 
victory, and, therefore, our supplications should naturally 
and spontaneously arise for him every day of our lives. 
Our union with him has given us a kingdom, the same 
kingdom as that which he claims. He himself has said 
it : ' * It is vour Father's good pleasure to give you the 
kingdom." As surely as He sets His Son upon the holy 
hill of Zion, so surely will the Lord bring us all there. 
Our prayers, therefore, should daily rise together with 
the pleadings of the great Intercessor himself. O Lord, 
thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory; let 
thy will be done in ea?th as it is in heaven. 

Our text employs jl figure which is very full of 
meaning. 

" He shall break them with a rod of iron." 

He breaks not the subject nations, nor the inherited 
heathen, but the kings of tb<? earth who stood up and 
took counsel together against the Lord, and against his 
Anointed. Against these he will lift up his iron rod of 
stern justice and irresistible power. 

Over His own inheritance He wiil sway a silver sceptre 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 243 

of love; over His own possession He shall reign with 
gentleness and grace; but, as for His adversaries, He will 
deal with them in severity, and display His power in 
them. 

How shall they stand out against Him ? 

They have formed their confederacy with great care 
and skill; as when men prepare clay and make it plastic 
for the potter's use, so have they made all things ready; 
they have set their design upon the wheel, and caused it 
to revolve in their thoughts, and with great skill they 
have fashioned it. 

Lo, there it stands finished, and fair to look upon. 
Yet, at its very best, it is nothing more than a potter's 
vessel. It may be of the purest clay, and of such ex- 
quisite workmanship that it shall enchant every man of 
taste, but it attaineth to be nothing more than an earthen 
vessel, and, therefore, woe unto it when the rod of iron 
falls upon it. 

Woe to all human societies and brotherhoods which 
are framed to resist the Lord. 

Mark the conflict and its end ! It is brief enough. 
A stroke ! Where is the hope of the Lord's adversary ? 
Gone, gone, utterly gone; only a few potsherds remain. 

Oh, for such a smiting of the apostacy of Rome ! 
Oh, for one touch of the iron rod upon the imposture of 
Mohammed ! Oh, for a blow at Buddhism, and a back 
stroke at the superstition of Brahminism, and at all the 
idols of the heathen ! Woe unto the gods of the land of 
Sinim in that day; a single stroke shall set the potsherds 
flying. 

Wherefore, then, should we fear, although they plot 



244 CHRIST. 



and plan; although a solemn conclave of cardinals be 
held, though the Pope fulminate his bulls, though the 
Sultan ordain that every convert to Christianity be put 
to death, though still the scoffers revile at Christianity, 
and say that it spreads not as once it did ? A speedy 
answer shall confound them, or, if not speedy, yet the 
stroke shall be sure. 

Our King waits a while. He hath leisure. Haste 
belongs to weakness; his strength moves calmly. Only 
let him be aroused and you shall see how quick are his 
paces. 

He redeemed the world in a few short hours upon the 
tree, and I warrant you that when he getteth that iron 
rod once fairly to work, he will not need many days to 
ease him of his adversaries, and make a clean sweep of 
all that set themselves against him. If you want to see 
how it will be done, read, I pray you, Daniel ii. 31: 

' ' Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. 
This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood 
before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. This 
image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of 
silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, 
his feet part of iron and part of clay." 

It was a strange conglomeration; all the metalic 
empires are set forth as combined in one image; which 
image is the embodied idea of monarchical power, which 
has fascinated men even to this day. The prophet goes 
on to say : 

" Thou sawest still that a stone was cut out without 
hands, which smate the image upon his feet that were of 
iron and clay, and broke them to pieces, Then was the 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 245 

iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken 
to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the 
summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them 
away, that no place was found for them; and the stone 
that smote the image became a great mountain, and 
filled the whole earth." 

And so it is to be; the vision is being each day ful- 
filled. The gospel stone, which owes nothing to human 
strength or wisdom, is breaking the image, and scatter- 
ing all opposing powers. No system, society, confederacy, 
or cabinet can stand which is opposed to truth and 
righteousness. 

I, even I, that am but of yesterday, and know noth- 
ing, have seen one of the mightiest of empires of modern 
times melt away on a sudden as the rime of the morning 
in the heat of the sun. 

I have seen monarchs driven out of their tyrannies 
by the powers of a single man, and a free nation born 
as in an hour. 

I have seen states which fought to hold the negro in 
perpetual captivity subdued by those whom they despised, 
while the slave has been set free. 

I have seen nations chastened under evil governments, 
and revived when the yoke has been broken, and they 
have returned to the ways of righteousness and peace. 

He who lives longest shall see most of this. Evil is 
short-lived. Truth shall yet rise above all. The Lord 
saith, overturn till he shall come, whose right it is, and 
God shall give it him. 

Woe unto those that shall stand against the Lord 
and his Anointed, for they shall not prosper. 



246 CHRIST. 



* ' Be wise, now therefore, O ye kings : be instructed, 
ye judges of the earth. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, 
and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled 
but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in 
Him." 

"Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." 

It was so once. Perfect obedience to the heavenly 
will upon this earth will only be a return to the good old 
times which ended at the gate of Eden. 

There was a day when no gulf was digged between 
earth and heaven; there was scarce a boundary line, for 
the God of heaven walked in Paradise with Adam. All 
things on earth were then pure, and true, and happy. It 
was the garden of the Lord. Alas, that the trail of the 
serpent has now defiled everything. Then earth's morn- 
ing song was heard in heaven, and heaven's hallelujahs 
floated down to earth at eventide. Those who desire to 
set up the kingdom of God are not instituting a new 
order of things; they are restoring, not inventing. 

Earth will drop into the old groove again. The Lord 
is King; and he has never left the throne. As it was in 
the beginning, so shall it be yet again. History shall, in 
the divinest sense, repeat itself. The temple of the 
Lord shall be among men, and the Lord God shall dwell 
among them. "Truth shall spring out of the earth; and 
righteousness shall look down from heaven." 
LOVE FOR SOULS. 

Note, in the commencement, that for the sake of 
those lost ones, our Lord assumes a special character. 
The eleventh verse puts it, ' ' The Son of man, has come 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 247 

^— — i ■ - i . i i — i — — — 

to save that which was lost." He was not originally 
known as "the Son of man," but as "the Son of God." 
Before all worlds, he dwelt in the bosom of the Father, 
and "thought it not robbery to be equal with God." 

But, in order to redeem men, the Son of the Highest 
became "the Son of man." 

He was born of the Virgin, and by birth inherited the 
innocent infirmities of our nature, and bore the suffer- 
ings incident to those infirmities. Then did he also take 
upon himself our sin and its penalty, and therefore died 
upon the cross. 

He was in all points made like unto his brethren. 
He could not be the shepherd of men without becoming 
like to them, and therefore the Word condescended to 
be made flesh. 

Behold the stupendous miracle of incarnation ! Noth- 
ing can excel this marvel — Immanuel, God with us ! 

' ' Being found in fashion as a man, he became obedient 
unto death, even the death of the cross. " 

O lost one, conscious of your loss, take heart to-day 
when the name of Jesus is named in your hearing; he is 
God, but he is man, and as God-and-man he saves his 
people from their sins. 

"The Son oi man is come." 

He was always known as "The Coming One" ; but 
as to the salvation of the lost he has actually come. For 
judgment he is "The Coming One" still; but for salvation 
we rejoice that our Savior has already come. Quitting 
the assemblies of the perfect, he has been here as the 
Friend of publicans and sinners. From being the Lord 



248 CHRIST. 



of angels, he has stooped to be * ' a man of sorrows, and 
acquainted with grief." 

Yes, he has come; and not in vain. Those who 
preached the coming Savior had such a joyous message 
to deliver that their feet were beautiful upon the moun- 
tains, and their voices were as heavenly music; but, as 
for us who preach that he has come, and, coming, has 
finished the work which he undertook to perform — surely 
ours is the choicest of messages. 

Our Lord Jesus has completed the atoning sacrifice, 
and the justifying righteousness, by which lost men are 
saved; happy is the preacher of such tidings, and blessed 
are your ears that hear them ! The good Shepherd has 
performed all that is necessary for the salvation of the 
flock which his Father has given into his hands. 

Beloved, let us take heart. Lost as we are, Christ 
has come to save us. He has come to the place of our 
ruin and woe. His coming and seeking will not be in 
vain. 

Brethren, how greatly ought we to value the souls of 
men when Jesus, for their sake, becomes a man, and 
comes into this sinful world among our guilty race that 
he may work the salvation of the lost ! 

AS A SHEPHERD. 

According to the text, the Shepherd goes into the 
mountains; among difficulties and dangers. He will do 
and dare for the saving of the lost; no hardships can 
daunt his mighty love. You know through what dark 
ravines he passed in saving men. You have heard what 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON, 249 

climbing he had after proud souls, and what condescen- 
sions for despairing ones. 

A sheep in the East is more light of foot than our 
sheep; it will leap like a gazelle, and climb the moun- 
tains like a chamois; and so are sinners very swift in 
transgression, and very daring in presumption. They 
leap in their iniquities where the children of God would 
shudder to follow them, even in thought. They make 
nothing of leaps of profanity which would curdle the 
blood of him that has been taught the fear of God at the 
feet of Jesus Christ. 

Yet, the Lord Jesus went after these desperadoes. 

What difficulties he conquered, what sufferings he en- 
dured, what mountains he overleaped, that he might 
seek and save ! 

O brethren, the same heart is in him still; he goes 
forth continually in the preaching of the Word. With 
many a sigh and many a groan on the part of his chosen 
ministers, he goes among the mountains to seek that 
which has gone astray. I pray that he may accept the 
effort of his unworthy servant this day, and bring some 
lost one home by means of this sermon. 

To show his exertion for the lost, our Lord describes 
himself as seeking with persevering diligence. He looks 
this way, but sees nothing. He shades his eyes with his 
hand, and looks steadily ! He thought he saw his sheep. 
There is surely a living object upon the hill-side ! He 
gazes intently. No, it does not stir : it is a white rock ! 
Possibly the lost sheep is in yonder gully ! It is a long 
way to go, but he is so intent on his purpose that he is 



250 CHRIST. 



soon there; but the sheep is not to be seen. Where can 
it be ? He travels on with swift foot, for he does not 
know what may become of his sheep while he delays. 
Every now and then he stops; he thinks he hears a bleat- 
ing. Surely it is the voice of his sheep ! He is mistaken. 
His love makes his ear the father of sounds which are 
not sounds at all. He has neither seen nor heard it 
these long hours; but he will continue seeking till he 
finds it. 

The concentrated omniscience of Christ is set upon 
a soul that goes astray, looking after it in all its evil 
desires and evil emotions; watching the growth of any- 
thing that looks like repentance; and observing with sor- 
row the hardening of its heart. 

This is what our Lord is doing for those redeemed 
with blood, who as yet have not been carried back to 
the fold. He puts forth a gracious exertion of eye and 
mind as well as of foot and hand, toward his wandering 
sheep. 

At the last he saves — completely saves. He has not 
come to make the salvation of his people possible; but 
to save them. He has not come to put them in the way 
of saving themselves, but to save them. He has not 
come to half save them; but to save them altogether. 

When my Lord comes forth in the majesty of his 
sovereign grace to save a soul, he achieves his purpose, 
despite sin, and death, and hell. 

The wolf may grind his teeth, but the Shepherd is 
the wolf's master. The sheep itself may for a long time 
have wandered, and at the last may struggle against him; 
but he grips its feet, and throws the creature on bis 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 251 

shoulders, and bears it home; for he is resolved to save 
it. The sheep is glad to be so borne, for with a touch 
the Shepherd moulds its will to his more perfect will. 
His grace is the triumphant energy by which the lost one 
is restored. 

The salvation of a single soul is a mass of miracles. 
I have heard of a fire which consumed the shop of a 
jeweler, and a number of costly treasures of gold, and 
silver, and precious stones, were found among the ruins, 
caked into a conglomerate of riches. 

What a salvage ! Such is the salvation of a single 
man, it is a mass of priceless mercies melted into one 
inestimable ingot, dedicated to the praise of the glory 
of his grace who makes us to be " accepted in the Be- 
loved," and " saved in the Lord with an everlasting 
salvation. " 

When I think of the energy whieh is put forth by the 
Lord to save a single lost soul, I feel stirred in my heart, 
and I desire that your hearts should be stirred also, that 
we may put forth all our strength to go and find the 
Lord's lost ones. Let us co-operate with him in his 
great labor of seeking that which is lost. Oh, that the 
Holy Spirit may put such a spirit within us, and keep it 
there ! 

FEEDING THE MULTITUDE. 

He knew what he was going to do, and so he did it 
naturally and did it orderly. It is not so when a man 
does not know what he is to provide for. 

What a hurry ! What a scurry ! What a running 
to and fro ! 



252 CHRIST. 



Jesus never conducts his matters in that way. He 
knew what he was going to do, and, therefore, he bade 
the men sit down on the grass; and they sat down like 
so many children. Mark tells us that they sat down in 
rows by fifties and by hundreds : they were arranged as 
if each one had been specially set to his plate, and found 
his name laid upon it. 

Moreover, there was much grass in the place, so that 
the hall was carpeted in a way that no firm in London 
could have done it. The feast was conducted as orderly 
as if there had been notice given seven days beforehand, 
and a contractor had supplied the provisions. 

Nothing could have been done in a better way, and 
all because Jesus knew what he would do. 

Moreover, he did it very joyfully. 

He took bread and blessed it. He went about it with 
great pleasure. I should have liked to have seen his 
face as he looked on those poor, famishing people being 
fed. Like a good host, he cheered them with his smile, 
while he blessed them with the food. 

And then he did it so plentifully, for he knew what 
he would do; so he did not come half provided, or stint 
them so that every man should have " a little." 

No ; he knew what he would do, and he measured 
their appetites exactly, a difficult thing when you have a 
number of hungry people to feed. 

He provided all that they wanted, and afterward 
there was provision left for the head waiters, so that 
each one should have a basketful for himself; for they 
took up of the fragments, twelve basketf uls — one for each 
of the head waiters. 




Adam and Eve. 
From the Painting by Gustave Dora. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 253 

DWELLING AMONG MEN. 

I think we may apply this illustration to Christ in 
his Divine Person. The Tabernacle was the type of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, for God dwells among men in Christ. 
"He tabernacled among us, and we beheld his glory." 
says the apostle. God dwelleth not in temples made 
with hands, that is to say, of this building; but the Tem- 
ple of God is Christ Jesus, ''in whom dwelleth all the 
fullness of the Godhead bodily." 

Our Lord is thus the Tabernacle which the Lord hath 
pitched, and not man; and our first and fundamental idea 
of him must be in his character as Redeemer. Our 
Lord does come to us in other characters, and in them 
all he is right glorious; but unless we receive him as 
Redeemer we have missed the essence of his character, 
the foundation idea of him. 

As the tent in the wilderness was founded upon the 
redemption money, so our idea and conception of Christ 
must be, first of all, that "he is the propitiation of our 
sins ; " and, I say this, though it may seem unnecessary 
to say it, because Satan is very crafty, and he leads many 
from plain truth by subtle means. 

I remember a sister, who had been a member of a 
certain denomination, who was converted to God in this 
place, though she had been a professed Christian for 
years. She said to me, " I have hitherto believed only 
in Christ crucified; I worshipped him as about to come 
in the second Advent to reign with his people, but I never 
had a sense of guilt, neither did I go to him as putting 
away my sin; and hence I was not saved." 

When she began to see herself as a sinner she found 



254 CHRIST. 

her need of a Redeemer. Atonement must enter into 
our first and chief idea of the Lord Jesus. 

"We preach Christ crucified"; we preach him glori- 
fied, and delight to do so; but still the main point upon 
which the eye of a sinner must rest, if he would have 
peace with God, must be Christ crucified for sin. 

"God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of 
our Lord Jesus Christ." 

Do, then, my dear hearer, let the very foundation of 
your faith in Christ be your view of him as ransoming 
you from the power of sin and Satan. 

Some say they admire Christ as an example, and 
well they may; they can never find a better; but Jesus 
Christ will never be truly known and followed if he is 
viewed only as an example, for he is infinitely more than 
that. 

Neither can any man carry out the project of being 
like Christ, unless he first knows him as making atone- 
ment for sin, and as giving power to overcome sin 
through his blood. 

Some writers have looked upon Christ from one point 
of view and some from another, and there is no book 
that is more likely to sell than a Life of Christ, but the 
most essential view of him is to be had from the cross 
foot. 

No complete life of Christ has been written yet. 

All the lives of Christ that have yet been written 
amount to about one drop of broth, while the four 
Evangelists are as a whole bullock. The pen of inspira- 
tion has accomplished what all the quills in the world 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 255 

will never be able to do again, and there is no need they 
should. 

However much we dwell upon the holiness of our 
Lord, we cannot complete his picture unless we describe 
him as the sinner's ransom. He is white, but he is ruddy 
too. Rutherford said, " O then, come and see if he be 
not a red man. In his suffering for us, he was wet with 
his own blood. Is he not well worthy of your love ?" 

When he comethforth in the vesture, dipped in blood, 
many shun him, they cannot bear the atoning sacrifice; 
but he is never in our eyes so matchlessly lovely as when 
we see him bearing our sins in his own body on the tree, 
and putting away transgression by making him the Sub- 
stitute for his people. 

THE GLORY OF GOD. 

We will, for a minute or two, consider this glory of 
Ued in the face of Jesus Christ historically. 

In every incident of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, 
the Lord's Anointed, there is much of God to be seen. 
What volumes upon volumes might be written to show 
God as revealed in every act of Christ, from his birth to 
his death ! I see him as a babe at Bethlehem, lying in a 
manger, and there I perceive a choice glory in the mind 
of God, for he evidently despises the pomp and glory of 
the world, which little minds esteem so highly. 

He might have been born in marble halls, and wrapped 
in imperial purple, but he scorns these things, and in the 
manger among the oxen we see a glory which is inden- 
pendent cf the trifles of luxury and parade. 

The glory of God in the person ol Jesus asks no aid 
from the splendor c* c*»\^*s znd peaces Yet. evefe at 



256 CHRIST. 



a babe he reigns and rules. Mark how the shepherds 
hasten to salute the new-born King, while the magi from 
the far-off East bring gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and 
bow at his feet. 

When the Lord condescends to show himself in little 
things he is still right royal, and commands the homage 
of mankind. He is as majestic in the minute as in the 
magnificent, as royal in the babe at Bethlehem as in 
after days in the man who rode through Jerusalem with 
hosannas. See the holy child, Jesus, in the temple when 
he is but twelve years old, sitting in the midst of the 
doctors, astonishing them with his questions ! 

What wisdom there was in that child ! Do you not 
see therein an exhibition of the truth that "the foolish- 
ness of God is wiser than men " ? Even when God re- 
serves his wisdom, and gives forth utterances fitted for a 
child, he baffles the wisdom of age and thought. 

Watch that youth in the carpenter's shop. 

See him planing and sawing, cutting and squaring, 
working according to his parent's command, till he is 
thirty years of age. 

What learn we here when we see the incarnate God 
tarrying at the workman's bench ? See we not how God 
can wait ? Is not this a masterly display of the leisure 
of the Eternal ? The Infinite is never driven out of his 
restful pace of conscious strength. 

Had it been you and I, we should have hastened to 
begin our life-work long before; we could not have re- 
frained from preaching and teaching for so long a period; 
but God can wait, and in Christ we see how prudsne« 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 257 

tempered zeal, and made him share in that eternal leisure 
which arises out of confidence that his end is sure. 

The Godhead was concealed at Bethlehem and Naza- 
reth from the eyes of carnel men; but it is revealed to 
those who have spiritual sight wherewith to behold the 
Lord. Even in those early days of our Lord, while yet 
he was preparing for his great mission, we behold the 
glory of God in his youthful face, and we adore. 

As for his public ministry, how clearly the Godhead 
is there ! 

Behold him, brethren, while he feeds five thousand 
with a few loaves and fishes, and you cannot fail to per- 
ceive therein the glory of God in the commissariat of the 
universe; for the Lord God openeth his hand and sup- 
plieth the lack of every living thing. 

See him cast out devils, and learn the divine power 
over evil. Hear him raise the dead, and reverence the 
divine prerogative to kill and to make alive. See him 
cure the sick, and think you hear Jehovah say, " I wound, 
I heal." Hear how he speaks, and infallibly reveal the 
truth, and you will perceive the God of knowledge to 
whom the wise-hearted owe their instruction. 

Set over against each other these two sentences: 
"Behold, God exalteth by his power; who teacheth like 
him?" and " Never man spake like this man." 

It is ever the Lord's way to make his truth known to 
those of humble and truthful hearts, and so did Jesus 
teach the sincere and lowly among men, wearing the 
common smock-frock of the peasant, entering their cot- 
tages, and sharing their poverty. Mark how he even 
washed his disciples' feet. 



258 CHRIST. 



Herein we see the condescension of God, who must 
stoop to view the skies, and bow to see what angels do, 
and yet does not disdain to visit the sons of men. In 
wondrous grace he thinks of us, and has pity upon our 
low estate. 

See, too, the Christ of God, my brethren, bearing 
every day with the taunts of the ungodly, enduring 
"such contradiction of sinners against himself," and you 
have a fair picture of the infinite patience and the mar- 
velous long suffering of God, and this is no small part of 
his glory. 

Note well how Jesus loved his own which were in the 
world, yea, loved them to the end, and with what ten- 
derness and gentleness he bore with them, as a nurse 
with her child, for here you see the tenderness and gen- 
tleness of God, and the love of the great Father towards 
his erring children. 

You read of Jesus receiving sinners and eating with 
them, and what is this but the Lord God, merciful and 
gracious, passing by transgression, iniquity, and sin ? 

You see Jesus living as a physician among those dis- 
eased by sin, with the one aim of healing their sicknesses; 
and here you see the pardoning mercy of our God, his 
delight in salvation, and the joy which he has in mercy. 

Beloved, I cannot go through the whole life of Jesus 
Christ, it were impossible, for time would fail us; but, if 
you will yourselves select any single incident in which 
Jesus appears, whether in the chamber of sickness or at 
the grave, whether in weakness or in power, you shall 
in each case behold the glory of God. 

Throughout his ministry, which was mainly a period 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 259 

of humiliation, there gleams forth in the character, acts, 
and person of Jesus the glory of the everlasting Father. 
His acts compel us not only to admire, but to adore; he 
is not merely a man whom God favors, he is God him- 
self. 

What shall I say of his death ? 

Oh, never did the love of God reveal itself so clearly 
as when he laid down his life for his sheep, nor did the 
justice of God ever flame forth so conspicuously as when 
he would suffer in himself the curse for sin rather than 
sin should go unpunished, and tbe law should be dis- 
honored. 

Every attribute of God was focussed at the cross, and 
he that hath eyes to look through his tears, and see the 
wounds of Jesus, shall behold more of God there than a 
whole eternity of providence or an infinity of creation 
shall ever be able to reveal to him. Well might the 
trembling centurion, as he watched the cross, exclaim, 
11 Truly, this was the Son of God." 

Shall I need to remind you, too, of the glory of God 
in the person of Christ Jesus in his resurrection, when 
he spoiled principalities and powers, led death captive, 
and rifled the tomb. 

That is indeed a Godlike speech, "I am He that 
liveth and was dead, and behold, I am alive for ever- 
more, and have the keys of hell and of death." 

His power, his immortality, his eternal majesty, all 
shone forth as he left the shades of death. 

I will not linger over his ascension when he returned 
to his own again. Then his Godhead was conspicuous, 



260 CHRIST. 



for he again put on the glory which he had with the 
Father before ever the world was. Then, amid the accla- 
mations of angels and redeemed spirits, the glory of the 
conquering Lord was seen. By his descent he had de- 
stroyed the powers of darkness, and then he ascended, 
that he might fill all things, as only God can do. 

I would only hint at his session at the right hand of 
God, for there you know how — 

" Adoring saints around him stand, 
And thrones and powers before him fall; 
The God shines gracious through the Man, 
And sheds sweet glories on them all." 

In heaven they never conceive of Jesus apart from 
the divine glory which perpetually surrounds him. No 
one in heaven doubts his deity, for all fall prostrate be- 
fore him, or anon all seize their harps and wake their 
strings to the praise of God and the Lamb. 

In the person of Jesus, we see the glory of God in 
the veiling of his splendor. The Lord is not eager to 
display himself : ' ' Verily thou art a God that hidest thy- 
self, said the prophet of old." The world seems to be 
created rather to hide God than to manifest him : at 
least, it js certain that even in the grandest displays of 
his power we may say with Job, " There was the hiding 
of his power." 

Though his light is brightness itself, yet it is only the 
robe which conceals him. ' ' Who coverest thyself with 
light as with a garment." 

If thus God's glory is seen in the field of creation as 
a light veiled and shaded to suit the human eye, we cer- 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 261 

tainly see the like in the face of Jesus Christ, where 
everything is mild and gentle — full of grace as well as 
truth. How softly breaks the divine glory through the 
human life of Jesus : a babe in grace may gaze upon this 
brightness without fear. 

When Moses' face shone, the people could not look 
thereon; but, when Jesus came from his transfiguration, 
the people ran to him and saluted him. Everything is 
attractive in God in Christ Jesus. In him we see God to 
the full, but the Deity so mildly beams through the 
medium of human flesh that mortal man may draw near, 
and look, and live. 

This glory in the face of Jesus Christ is assuredly the 
glory of God, even though veiled ; for thus in every other 
instance doth God in measure shine forth. In providence 
and in nature such a thing as an unveiled God is not to 
be seen, and the revelation of God in Christ is after the 
same divine manner. 

In our Lord Jesus we see the glory of God in the 
wondrous blending of the attributes. Behold his mercy, 
for he dies for sinners; but see his justice, for he sits as 
judge of quick and dead. Observe his immutability, for 
he is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever; and see 
his power, for his voice shakes not only earth, but also 
heaven. See how infinite is his love, lor he espouses his 
chosen; but how terrible his wrath, for he consumes his 
adversaries. 

All the attributes of Deity are in him : power that 
can lull the tempest, and tenderness ttvat can embrace 
little children. The character of Christ is a wonderful 



262 ELISHA. 



combination of all perfections, making up one perfection; 
and, so we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus 
Christ, for this is God's glory, that in him nothing is ex- 
cessive and nothing is deficient. He is all that is good 
*nd great; in him is light, and no darkness at all. 
Say, is it not so seen iu Jesus our Lord ? 



ELISHA 



Elisha needed that the Holy Spirit should come upon 
him to inspire him with prophetic utterances. 

"Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost." 

We need that the hand of the Lord should be laid 
upon us, for we can never open our mouths in wisdom 
except we are under the divine touch. Now, the Spirit 
of God works according to his own will. "The wind 
bloweth where it listeth," and the Spirit of God operates 
as he chooseth. 

Elisha could not prophesy just when he liked ; he 
must wait until the Spirit of God came upon him, and 
the Spirit of God could come or not, even as he pleased. 
Elisha had noticed that the Spirit of God acted upon 
him most freely when his mind was restful and subdued. 
He found himself best prepared for the heavenly vojce 
when the noise within his soul was hushed, and every 
disturbing emotion was quieted. Having ascertained 
this fact by observation, he acted upon it. He could not 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 263 

create the wind of the Spirit, but he could set his sail to 
receive it, and he did so. 

At the time alluded to, Elisha had been greatly irri- 
tated by the sight of Jehoram, the king of Israel, the 
son of Ahab and Jezebel. 

In the true spirit of his old master, Elijah, the 
prophet let Jehoram know what he thought of him ; and, 
having delivered his soul, he very naturally felt agitated 
and distressed, and unfit to be the mouthpiece for the 
Spirit of God. He knew that the hand of the Lord 
would not rest upon him while he was in that state, and 
therefore he said, " Bring me a minstrel." 

The original Hebrew conveys the idea of a man ac- 
customed to play upon the harp. Listening to the dulcet 
tones which were produced by a skillful harper, who 
very likely sang one of David's psalms to the music, the 
prophet waited awhile, and then the hand of the Lord 
came upon him. 

Under the influence of minstrelsy his mind grew 
quiet, his agitation subsided, his thoughts were collected, 
and the Spirit of God spake through him. It was a 
most commendable thing for him to use the means which 
he had found at other times helpful, though still his sole 
reliance was upon the hand of the Lord. 

It would seem from a passage in the First Book of 
Samuel that Elisha was not the only prophet who had 
found music helpful, for we read, ' ' Thou shalt meet a 
company of prophets coming down from the high place 
with a psaltery, and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp, 
before them; and they shall prophesy." Elisha, like his 



264 ELISHA. 



predecessors, only used a natural means for putting him- 
self into readiness for receiving supernatural help. 

Let us see if we can bring forth the practical lesson 
which this incident may teach us. 

Here is a lesson to those who wish to serve God, and 
to speak in his name. Let us strive to be in a fit state 
for the Lord's work. If we know of anything that will 
put our mind into such a condition that the Spirit of 
God is likely to work upon us and speak through us, let 
us make use of it. 

Elisha cried, ' ' Bring me a minstrel " ; let us also say 
— bring me that which will be helpful to me. The har- 
per could be of no service to Elisha for bringing him in- 
spiration, but by putting him into a calm, equable state 
of mind, he prepared him for the heavenly communica- 
tion, and removed from his soul that which would have 
hindered the divine working. 

It is very evident that we, too, like the prophet, have 
our hindrances. We are at times unfit for the Master's 
use. Our minds are disarranged, the machinery is out 
of order, the sail is furled, the pipe is blocked us, the 
whole soul is out of gear. 

The hindrance in Elisha's case came from his sur- 
roundings. He was in a camp; a camp where three 
nations mixed their discordant voices; a noisy, ill-dis- 
ciplined camp, and a camp ready to perish for thirst. 
There was no water, and the men-at-arms were perish- 
ing; the confusion and clamor must have been great. 
Prophetic thought could scarcely command itself amid 
the uproar, the discontent, the threatening from thou- 
sands of thirsty men. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 265 

Three kings had waited on the prophet; but this 
would not have disconcerted him had not one oi them 
been Jehoram, the son of Ahah, and Jezebel. 

What memories were awakened in the mind of Elijah's 
servant by the sight of the man in whom the proud dame 
of Sidon and her base-minded consort lived again. 
Naboth's vineyard must have come to his mind, and the 
stern threat of Elijah — "The dogs shall eat Jezabel by 
the wall of Jezreel. " ' ' For there was none like unto 
Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the 
sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel, his wife, stirred up." 

Elisha acted rightly, and bravely. 

When he saw Jehoram coming to him for help, he 
challenged him thus — "What have I to do with thee? 
Get thee to the prophets of thy father, and to the 
prophets of thy mother." 

When the king humbly and with bated breath con- 
fessed that he saw the hand of Jehovah in bringing the 
three kings together, the prophet scarcely moderated his 
tone, but exclaimed, ' ' As the Lord of hosts liveth, be- 
fore whom I stand, surely, were it not that I regard the 
presence of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, I would not 
look toward thee, nor see thee." 

It was fit that he should be in that temper; the occa- 
sion demanded it. Still it was not a fit preface to the 
inward whisper of the Spirit of God, and the prophet 
did not feel ready for his work : the circumstances were 
not soothing or elevating, so he said, "Bring me a 
minstrel. " 

Do you not occasionally find yourself in an unhappy 
position ? You have to preach, or to teach a class in 



266 ELISHA. 



school, or to carry an edifying word to a sick person; but 
everything distracts you. What with noise, or domestic 
trouble, or sinful neighbors, or the railing words of some 
wicked man, you cannot get into a fit frame of mind. 
You have had a duty to do which has caused you much 
pain and disquietude, and you cannot get over it, for 
everything conspires to worry you. Little things grieve 
great minds. The very sight of some individuals will 
throw a preacher off the rails. I know that the height 
of the pulpit, the thinness of the audience, the sleepiness 
of a hearer, or the heaviness of the atmosphere, may 
put the preacher's heart out of tune, and incapacitate 
him for the blessing. Yes, we have our hindrances, even 
as Elisha had. 

Elisha's hindrances lay mainly in his inward feelings: 
he could not feel the hand of the Lord upon him until 
the inner warfare had been pacified. He burned with 
indignation at the sight of the son of Jezebel, and flashed 
words of flame into his face, and, as I have already said, 
he was justified in so doing; but still the excitement 
marred the holy peace in which he usually lived, and he 
did not feel in a right condition to speak in the name of 
the Lord. 

Anger, even if it be of the purest kind, is a great 
disturber of the heart ; it ruffles all our garments, and 
makes us unfit to minister before the Lord. I know of 
nothing that is more likely to put a man out of order 
for the communications of the Spirit of God than indig- 
nation. Even though we may be able to say, " I do well 
to be angry," yet it is a very trying emotion. The un- 
ruffled lake reflects the skies, but if it be tossed with 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 267 

tempest even the purest water becomes a broken mirror; 
even thus in the quiet of the soul the thoughts of God's 
Spirit are reflected, while in the rush of indignation they 
are broken and confused. 



GOD. 

Let us joyfully recollect that the Lord our God has 
not changed, nay, not in one jot or tittle. He is "the 
same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." 

There is so far a change in the revelation of Him, 
that it is brighter now in the person of our Lord and 
Savior Jesus Christ, than it could have been through 
seer and vision; but that should be a motive for increased 
faith. " His arm is not shortened that He cannot save, 
neither is His ear heavy that He cannot hear." 

This God of Abraham is still mighty, and still in the 
midst of the covenanted ones. If the ages that have 
passed over His awful brow could wrinkle it and His 
strength could decay, then might we also decline in our 
confidence; but it is not so„ He fainteth not, neither is 
weary. Our behavior towards him, therefore, should re- 
semble that of Abraham ; and especially, representing, 
as we do, many of us, the churches of Jesus Christ as 
ministers or deacons, we must never dishonor the Lord 
by unbelief. Doubt everything but God. Let God be 
true and every man a liar. This the everlasting decree 
which none can change, — Christ must reign : he shall 



268 GOD. 

see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied; the 
kings of the earth must bow before him. Do not doubt 
it, for God hath sworn by His own life that all flesh shall 
see His glory. Here is the grand argument for strong 
faith. 

What marvelous things hath God done on the face of 
the earth since Abraham's days ! — the stupendous marvel 
of incarnation, the height and depth of which none of 
us can measure ; the wondrous work of redemption, the 
highest, grandest, divinest achievement of the Deity — 
all this is done ; what may we expect after this ? You 
know more of God than Abraham could know ; I beseech 
you, then, trust Him, at least up to the level of the 
patriarch. How shall we forge an excuse if we do not ? 
What can excuse us if we distrust so glorious a God. 

See the patience of His infinite majesty, — He sits in 
calm glory upon His eternal throne. The nations furi- 
ously rage and imagine a vain thing : ' ' He that sitteth 
in the heavens doth laugh ; the Lord doth have them in 
derision. " 

Still are His purposes fulfilled, and his soul abides in 
its serenity; He is the same, and of His years there is no 
end. He sitteth as a King, observe, upon a throne ; He 
never renounces His sovereignty and domain. All things 
still feel the omnipotence of the reign of God. 

"The Lord hath prepared His throne in the heavens, 
and His kingdom ruleth over all." The rebellions of 
men, can they ever shake His firm dominion ? No, but 
out of their wildest uproar He fashioneth order, and by 
their most violent resistance He worketh His own pur- 
poses. After all, the Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice, 




The Betrayal. — From the Painting by Gustave Dora 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 269 

!et the multitudes of the isles be glad thereof. Still, 
despite all the hurly-burly of war, and a!l the wicked- 
ness of men in the dark places of the earth, and the de- 
testable blasphemies of the heathen against the Most 
High, the Lord sitteth on a throne which never can be 
shaken. 

If you choose to take the text as referring to the Lord 
Jesus Christ, what a delight it is for us to think that there 
is no more for Him the thorny crown, and the cruel lance, 
and the contemptuous spittle, but he who bowed his 
head to death has left the dead, no more to die, and 
ascended to the right hand of God, even the Father; 
God having highly exalted him, so that he now sitteth 
upon a throne high and lifted up. This, in fact, is the 
origin of our commission — "Go ye, therefore, and teach 
all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 

Because all power is given unto him in heaveu and in 
earth, therefore we are to go forth and subdue the people 
under his feet. O when will his church fully believe in 
the glory of her Lord, and rejoice therein, so that His 
power shall fill her, as his train atoretime filled the tem- 
ple. If we cannot behold His greatest glories, yet we 
pray that His presence by the Holy Spirit, like the per- 
fumed smoke and the resplendent skirts of his rooes, may 
be known among us and fill us with adoration. Did the 
posts of the door move at that august presence ? Let 
our hearts be moved also as, in lowliest adoration, we bow 
before Him who is Lord and Christ. 

But then Isaiah saw also the court of the great King; 
he beheld the glorious attendants who perpetually per- 



270 GOD. 

form homage, nearest to His throne. He says, "Above 
it (or rather above him) stood the seraphims," not im- 
plying that their feet rested upon the earth, or upon any 
other solid substance, but that they were stationary around 
and above the great King, poised in mid air in a circle, 
like a rainbow round about the throne, or as a body 
guard surrounding the throne of majesty. There were 
they, waiting to know his pleasure, on the wing, ready 
for any errand, and adoring while they waited. These 
seraphims may furnish us with a pattern for Christian 
service : as the throne of God becomes the impulse to 
that service, so let these serve us as the model. They 
dwell near the Lord, and even so should we ; he is their 
centre and their bliss, even so should he be ours. But I 
specially note that they were burning ones, for such is 
the meaning of the word seraphims, a term applied in 
the Hebrew to the fiery flying serpents of the wilderness. 
These courtiers of the great King were creatures of fire, 
ablaze with ardour; all glowing and shining, they wor- 
ship him, "who maketh his angels spirits, his ministers 
a flame of fire." 

Jehovah, who is a consuming fire, can only fitly be 
served by those who are on fire, whether they be angels 
or men. Hence that solemn question, " Who among us 
shall dwell with the devouring fire ? Who among us 
shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" (Is. xxxiii. 14). 
None can do this but the man on fire with love divine. 

Again, another part of the vision of Isaiah in the 
temple was the perpetual song, for these sacred beings 
continually cried, " Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, 
the whole earth is full of his glory. " 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 271 

Brothers and sisters, let us take this cry to be the 
life song of each one of us. Adore ye the holy God, 
perfection's self. Whatever He shall do with you, bless 
Him, and call Him holy still. Find no fault with His 
dispensations; never dare to quarrel with any of His 
ways. Holy, holy, holy is he in all things. In creation, 
providence, and redemption he is holy, holy, holy. 

Praise Him with ardor ; be not content to call him 
holy once, but dwell upon the theme. Extol the Lord 
with all your might ; raise again, and again, and again 
the sacred song. Adore not alone the Father, but the 
Son, and the ever-blessed Spirit ; let the Trinity in Unity 
be the object of your perpetual adoration. 

' ' Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty ! 
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee ; 
Holy, holy, holy ! Merciful and mighty ! 
God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity ! " 

While you praise His holiness, do not forget His power, 
but adore Him as ''Jehovah of hosts." He is as great 
as He is good, as high as He is holy, as potent as He is 
pure. He created the heavens, and the earth, and all 
the host of them. Legions of angels do His bidding; 
hosts of intelligences wait His call; all forces of nature, 
animate and inanimate, march at His command; from the 
crash of thunder to the flight of an insect all things are 
at his beck. Hosts of birds migrate at His direction, 
hosts of fishes swarm the sea at His call, hosts of locusts 
and caterpillars devour the fields at His order. His 
armies are innumerable, and all living things are in their 
regiments a part of His camp, which is very great. Men, 
also, whether they will or not, shall be subservient to His 



2 72 HAGAR AND ISHMAEL. 

supreme dominion; their armies and their navies fulfill 
His decrees even when they think not of Him. He is 
Lord of all. 

Exult in this, and let your hearts be brave because of it 



HAGAR AND ISHMAEL. 

Briefly, let us rehearse the circumstances. 

The Child, Isaac, was, according to God's word, to 
be the heir of Abraham. Ishmael, the elder son of 
Abraham, by the bond-woman, Hagar, resided at home 
with his father till he was about eighteen years of age; 
but when he began to mock and scoff at the younger 
child, whom God had ordained to be the heir, it became 
needfnl that he and his mother should be sent away from 
Abraham's encampment. 

It might have seemed unkind and heartless to have 
sent them forth, but God, having arranged to provide for 
them, sent a divine command, which at once rendered 
their expulsion necessary, and certified its success. 

We may rest assured that whatever God commands 
he will be quite certain to justify. He knew it would be 
no cruelty to Hagar or Ishmael to be driven into inde- 
pendence, and he gave a promise which secured them 
everything which they desired. 

"Also of the son of the bond-woman will I make a 
great nation ; " and again, " I have blessed him, and will 
make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGBON. 273 

twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a 
great nation. " 

Had they both been able to go forth from Abraham's 
tent in faith they might have trodden the desert with joy- 
ous footstep, fully assured that he who bade them go, 
and he who promised that he wonld bless them, would 
be certain to provide all things needful for them. 

Early in the morning they were sent forth on their 
journey, with as much provision as they could carry, and 
probably they intended to make their way to Egypt, 
from whence Hagar had come. 

They may have lost their way; at any rate, they 
are spoken of as wandering. Their store of food be- 
came exhausted, the water in the skin bottle was all spent; 
both of them felt the fatigue of the wilderness, and the 
heat of the pitiless sand; they were both faint and weary, 
and the younger utterly failed. As long as the mother 
could sustain the tottering, fainting footsteps of her boy, 
she did so; when she could do so no longer, he swooned 
with weakness, and she laid him down beneath the slight 
shade of the desert tamarisk, that ke might be, as far as 
possible, screened from the excessive heat of the sun. 

Looking into his face, and seeing the pallor of com- 
ing death gathering upon it, knowing her inability to do 
anything whatever to revive him, or even to preserve his 
life, she could not bear to sit and gaze upon his face, but 
withdrew just far enough to be able still to watch with 
all a mother's care. She sat down in the brokenness of 
her spirit, her tears gushed forth in torrents, and heart- 
rending cries of agony startled the rocks around. 

It was needful that the high spirit of tH-»- mother and 



274 HAGAR AND ISHMAEL. 

her son should be broken down before they received 
prosperity; the mother had been, on a former occasion, 
graciously humbled by being placed in much the same 
condition, but she had probably relapsed into a haughty 
spirit, and had encouraged her boy in his insolence to 
Sarah's son, and, therefore, she must be chastened yet 
again ; and it was equally needful that the high-spirited 
lad should for a while bear the yoke in his youth, and 
that he who would grow up to be the wild man, the 
father of the unconquerable Arab, should feel the power 
of God ere he received the fulfillment of the promise 
given to him in answer to Abraham's prayer. 

If I read the text aright, while the mother was thus 
weeping, the child, almost lost to all around, was never- 
theless conscious enough of his own helpless condition, 
and sufficiently mindful of his father's God, to cry in his 
soul to heaven for help ; and the Lord heard not so much 
the mother's weeping (for the feebleness of her faith, 
which ought to have been stronger in memory of a 
former deliverance, hindered her prayer), but the silent, 
unuttered prayers of the fainting lad went up into the 
ears of Elohim, and the angel of Elohim appeared and 
pointed to the well. The child received the needful 
draught of water, was soon restored, and in him and his 
posterity the promise of God received and continues to 
receive a large fulfillment. 

I am not about to speak upon that narrative except 
as it serves me with an illustration for the subject which 
I would now press upon you. 

Behold the compassion of a mother for her child ex- 
piring with thirst, and remember that such a compassion 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 275 

ought all Christians to feel towards souls that are perish- 
ing for lack of Christ, perishing eternally, perishing with- 
out hope of salvation. If the mother lifted up her voice 
and wept, so also should we ; and if the contemplation 
of her dying child was all too painful for her, so may the 
contemplation of the wrath to come, which is to pass 
upon every soul that dies impenitent, become too painful 
for us, but yet at the same time, it should stimulate us 
to earnest prayer and ardent effort for the salvation of 
our fellow men. 



JESUS. 

ANGELS PRAISING. 

" Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, 
good will toward men." — Luke ii. 14. 

First, then, in the words of our text. There are 
many instructive thoughts. 

The angels sang something which men could under- 
stand — something which men ought to understand — 
something which will make men much better if they will 
understand it. The angels were singing about Jesus who 
was born in the manger. We must look upon their song 
as being built upon this foundation. They sang of Christ, 
and the salvation which he came into this world to work 
out. And what they said of this salvation was this : they 
said, first, that it gave glory to God ; secondly, that it 
gave peace to man ; and, thirdly, that it was a token of 
God's good will towards the human race. 



276 JBSUS. 

■ w ■ . ■■ I ■ .11. . ii ■■ ■ I M l i T l ! ■■■■ I r , i W^mMl— 

First t M#p i«#V M«* M#V salvation gov 4 glory to God. 
They had been present on many august occasions, and 
they had joined in many a solemn chorus to the praise 
of their Almighty Creator. They were present at the 
creation : ' ' The morning stars sang together, and all the 
sons of God shouted for joy. " They had seen many a 
planet fashioned between the palms of Jehovah, and 
wheeled by His eternal hands through the infinitude of 
space. They had sung solemn songs over many a world 
which the Great One had created. We doubt not, they 
had often chanted ' ' Blessing and honor, and glory, and 
majesty, and power, and dominion, and might, be unto 
Him that sitteth on the throne," manifesting himself in 
the work of creation. I doubt not, too, that their songs 
had gathered force through ages. As when first created, 
their first breath was song, so when they saw God create 
new worlds then their song received another note ; they 
rose a little higher in the gamut of adoration. But this 
time, when they saw God stoop from his throne, and be- 
come a babe, hanging upon a woman's breast, they lifted 
their notes higher still ; and, reaching to the uttermost 
stretch of angelic music, they gained the highest notes 
of the divine scale of praise, and they sang, " Glory to 
God in the highest" for higher in goodness they felt 
God could not go. 

Thus their highest praise they gave to Him in the 
highest act of his godhead. If it be true that there is a 
hierarchy of angels, rising tier upon tier in magnificence 
and dignity — if the apostle teaches us that there be 
"angels, and principalities, and powers, and thrones, 
and dominions," amongst these blest inhabitants of the 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEO*. 277 

upper world — I can suppose that, when the intelligence 
was first communicated to those angels that are to be 
found upon the outskirts of the heavenly world, when 
they looked down from heaven and saw the new-born 
babe, they sent the news backward to the place whence 
the miracle first proceeded, singing 

"Angels, from the realms of glory, 

Wing your downward flight to earth, 

Ye who sing creation's story, 
Now proclaim Messiah's birrfa ; 

Come and worship, 

Worship Christ, the new-born Ki&g." 

And, as the message ran from rank to rank, at last 
tne presence angels, those four cherubim that perpetually 
watch around the throne of God — those wheels with eyes 
— took up the strain, and, gathering up the song of all 
the inferior grades of angels, surmounted the divine 
pinnacle of harmony with their own solemn chant of 
adoration, upon which the entire host shouted, "The 
highest angels praise thee" — "Glory to God in the 
highest." 

Ah, there is no mortal that can ever dream how mag- 
nificent was that song. Then, note, if angels shouted 
before and when the world was made, their hallelujahs 
were more full, more strong, more magnificent, if not 
more hearty, when they saw Jesus Christ born of the 
Virgin Mary to be man's redeemer — " Glory to God in 

the highest." 

SON OF GOD. 

* ' For unto us a child is born, unto us a child is 
given." — Isaiah ix. 6. 

Upon other occasions I have explained the main part 



278 JESUS. 

of this verse — "the government shall be upon his shoul- 
ders, his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, 
the Mighty God." If God shall spare me, on some 
future occasion I hope to take the other titles, "The 
Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." But now the 
portion which will engage our attention is this, ' ' Unto 
us a child is born, unto us a Son is given." The sentence 
is a double one, but it has in it no tautology. The care- 
ful reader will soon discover a distinction ; and it is not a 
distinction without a difference. Unto us a child is 
born, unto us a Son is given. " 

As Jesus Christ is a child in his human nature, he 
is born, begotten of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin 
Mary. He is as truly born, as certainly a child, as any 
other* man that ever lived upon the face of the earth. 
He is thus in his humanity a child born. 

But as Jesus Christ is God's Son, he is not born, but 
given, begotten of his Father from before all worlds, be- 
gotten — not made, being of the same substance with 
the Father. The doctrine of the eternal affiliation of 
Christ is to be received as an undoubted truth of our 
holy religion. But, as to any explanation of it, no man 
should venture thereon, for it remaineth among the deep 
things of God — one of those solemn mysteries, indeed, 
into which the angels dare not look, nor do they desire 
to pry into it — a mystery which we must not attempt to 
fathom, for it is utterly beyond the grasp of any finite 
being. As well might a gnat seek to drink in the ocean, 
as a finite person to comprehend the Eternal God. A 
God whom we could understand would be no God. If 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. C. H. SPURGEON. 279 

we could grasp him he could not be infinite ; if we could 
understand him, then were he not divine. 

Jesus Christ, then, I say, as a Son, is not born to us, 
but given. He is a boon bestowed on us, "For God so 
loved the world, that He sent His only begotten Son into 
the world." He was not born in this world as God's 
Son, but he was sent, or was given, so that you clearly 
perceive that the distinction is a suggestive one, and con- 
veys much good truth to us. "Unto us a ehild is 
born, unto us a Son is given" 

According to the text they were not to fear, first of 
all, because the angel had come to bring them good news. 
How does it run ? It says, ' ' I bring you good tidings of 
great joy." But what was this gospel ? Further on we 
are told that the gospel was the fact that Christ was 
born. So, then, it is good news to men that Christ was 
born, that God has come down and taken manhood into 
union with himself. Verily this is glad tidings. 

He, who made the heavens, slumbers in a manger. 
What then ? Why, then, God is not of necessity an 
enemy to man. because here is God actually taking man- 
hood into alliance with Deity. 

There cannot be permanent, inveterate, rooted enmity 
between the two natures, or otherwise the divine nature 
could not have taken the human into hypostatical union 
with itself. Is there not comfort in that ? Thou art a 
poor, erring, feeble man, and that which makes thee 
afraid of the Lord is this fear that there is an enmity be- 
tween God and man, but there need not be such enmity, 
for thy Maker has actually taken manhood into union with 
himself. 



280 JESUS. 

Dost thou not see another thought ? The Eternal 
seems to be so far away from us. He is infinite, and we 
are such little creatures. There appears to be a great 
gulf fixed between man and God, even on the ground of 
creatureship. But observe, he who is God has also be- 
come man. We never heard that God took the nature 
of angels into union with himself ; we may therefore say 
that between Godhead and angelhood there must be an 
infinite distance still ; but here the Lord has actually 
taken manhood into union with himself ; there is there- 
fore no longer a gulf fixed, on the contrary, here is a 
marvelous union ; Godhead has entered into marriage 
bonds with manhood. O my soul, thou dost not stand 
now like a poor lone orphan wailing across the deep sea 
after thy Father who has gone far away and cannot hear 
thee ; thou dost not now sob and sigh like an infant left 
naked and helpless, its Maker having gone too far away 
to regard its wants or listen to its cries. 

No, thy Maker has become like thyself. Is that too 
strong a word to use ? He without whom was not any- 
thing made that was made is that same Word who 
tabernacled among us and was made flesh, made flesh in 
such a way that he was tempted in all points like as we 
are, yet without sin. 

O manhood, was there ever such news as this for 
thee ! Poor manhood, thou weak worm of the dust, far 
lower than the angels, lift up thy head, and be not afraid! 
Poor manhood, born in weakness, living in toil, covered 
with sweat, and dying at last to be eaten by the worms, 
be not thou abashed even in the presence of seraphs, for 
next to God is man, and not even an archangel can come 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 281 

in between ; nay, not next to God, there is scarcely that 
to be said, for Jesus, who is God, is man also ; Jesus 
Christ, eternally God, was born, and lived, and died as 
we also do. That is the first word of comfort to expel 
our fear. 

Remember one thing, that all the words of God in 
the Old Testament and the New refer to Christ ; and 
what is more, that all the words of God have an opened 
window towards Christ. Yes, I say that in the creation 
of the world the central thought of God was his Son 
Jesus, and he made the world with a view to his death, 
resurrection, and glorious reign. 

From every midge that dances in the summer sun- 
beam up to the great leviathan in the sea, the whole 
design of the world worketh toward the seed in whom 
the earth is blessed. In providence it is just the same ; 
every event, from the fall of a leaf to the rise of a 
monarchy, is linked with the kingdom of Jesus. I have 
not time to show this, but it is so ; and if you choose to 
think it over, you will clearly perceive it. 

He set the bonds of the nations according to the 
children of Israel, and everything that has happened or 
ever shall happen in the outside world, all has a look to- 
wards the Christ, and that which comes of the Christ. I 
love to find Jesus everywhere, — not by twisting the 
Psalms and other Scriptures to make them speak of 
Christ when they do nothing of the kind, but by seeing 
him where he truly is. 

I would not err as Cocceius did, of whom they said 
his great fault was that he found Christ everywhere ; but 
I would far rather err in his direction than have it said 



282 JESUS. 

of me, as of another divine of the same period, that I 
found Christ nowhere. 

Would it not be better to see him where he is not 
than to miss him where he is ? The pattern of the things 
on earth is in heaven ; is, in fact, in Jesus, the Son of 
God. He is the pattern according to which the Taber- 
nacle and the Temple were builded ; ay, and the pattern 
according to which this brave world was made, and worlds 
which are yet to be revealed. All the treasures of the 
wisdom of God are hidden in Christ, and in Christ they 
are made manifest. I do not wonder, therefore, that 
this passage in Hosea should point to him. 

It is certain that our blessed Lord is in the highest 
sense the Son of God. " Out of Egypt have I called 
my son." Write the word SON in capitals, — and it must 
mean bim : it cannot with emphasis mean anyone else. 
I would rather give up the idea that Hosea even thought 
of Israel, than think that the Holy Spirit did not intend 
that we should see Jesus in those memorable words, 
"My Son." 

IN THE MANGER. 

I shall commence by remarking that there were other 
reasons why Christ should be laid in the manger. 

i. I think it was intended thus to show forth his 
humiliation. He came, according to prophecy, to be 
" despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and 
acquainted with grief ; " he was to be " without form or 
comeliness," "a root out of a dry ground." 

Would it have been fitting that tbe man who was to 
die naked on the cross should be robed in purple at his 
birth ? Would it not have been inappropriate that tbe 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 283 

Redeemer who was to be buried in a borrowed tomb 
should be born anywhere but in the humblest shed, and 
housed anywhere in the most ignoble manner ? The man- 
ger and the cross standing at the two extremities of the 
Savior's earthly life seem most fit and congruous, the one 
to the other. He is to wear through life a peasant's 
garb ; he is to associate with fishermen ; the lowly are to 
be his disciples ; the cold mountains are often to be his 
only bed ; he is to say, ' ' Foxes have holes, and the birds 
of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not 
where to lay his head ;" nothing, therefore, could be more 
fitting than that in his season of humiliation, when he 
laid aside all his glory, and took upon himself the form 
of a servant, and condescended even to the meanest 
estate, he should be laid in a manger. 

2. By being in a manger he was declared to be the 
king of the poor. They, doubtless, were at once able to 
recognize his relationship to them, from the position in 
which they found him. I believe it excited feelings of 
the tenderest brotherly kindness in the minds of the 
shepherds, when the angels said — "This shall be a sign 
unto you ; you shall find the child wrapped in swaddling- 
clothes and lying in a manger." 

In the eyes of the poor, imperial robes excite no 
affection, but a man in their own garb attracts their con- 
fidence. With what pertinacity will workingmen cleave 
to a leader of their own order, believing in him because 
he knows their toils, sympathizes in their sorrows, and 
feels an interest in all their concerns. Great command- 
ers have readily won the hearts of their soldiers by shar- 
ing their hardships and roughing it as if they belonged 



284 JESUS. 

to the ranks. The King of Men, who was born in Beth- 
lehem, was not exempted in his infancy from the com- 
mon calamities of the poor, nay, his lot was even worse 
than theirs. 

I think I hear the shepherds comment on the manger- 
birth, "Ah !" said one to his fellow, "then he will not be 
like Herod, the tyrant; he will remember the manger and 
feel for the poor; poor, helpless infant, I feel a love for 
him even now, what miserable accommodation this cold 
world yields its Savior; it is not a Caesar that is born to- 
day; he will never trample down our fields with his armies, 
or slaughter our flocks with his courtiers, he will be the 
poor man's friend, the people's monarch; according to 
words of our shepherd-king, he shall judge the poor of 
the people; he shall save the children of the needy." 

Surely the shepherds, and such as they — the poor of 
the earth, perceived at once that here was the plebian 
king; noble in descent, but still as the Lord hath called 
him, "one chosen out of the people." 

Great Prince of Peace ! the manger was thy royal 
cradle ! Therein wast thou presented to all nations as 
Prince of our race, before whose presence there is neither 
barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but thou art Lord 
of all. 

Kings, your gold and silver would have been lavished 
on him if ye had known the Lord of Glory, but inas- 
much as ye knew him not, he was declared with demon- 
stration to be a leader and a witness to the people. The 
things which are not, under him shall bring to nought 
the things that are, and the things that are despised 
which God hath ebosen, shall, under his leadership 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 285 

break in pieces the might, and pride, and majesty of 
human grandeur. 

3. Further, in thus being laid in a manger, he did, 
as it were, give an invitation to the most humble to come 
to him. We might tremble to approach a throne, but 
we cannot fear to approach a manger. Had we seen the 
Master at first riding in state through the streets of Jeru- 
salem, with garments laid in the way, and the palm- 
branches strewed, and the people crying, "Hosanna!" 
we might have thought, though even the thought would 
have been wrong, that he was not approachable. Even 
there, riding upon a colt, the foal of an ass, he was so 
meek and lowly, that the young children clustered about 
him with their boyish " Hosanna !" 

Never could there be a being more approachable than 
Christ. No rough guards pushed poor petitioners away; 
no array of officious friends were allowed to keep off the 
importunate widow or the man who clamored that his 
son might be made whole; the hem of his garment was 
always trailing where sick folks could reach it, and he 
himself had a hand always ready to touch the disease, 
an ear to catch the faintest accents of misery, a soul 
going forth everywhere in rays of mercy, even as the 
light of the sun streams on every side beyond that orb 
itself. By being laid in a manger he proved himself a 
priest taken from among men, one who has suffered like 
his brethren, and therefore can be touched with a feeling 
of our infirmities. 

Of him it was said, "He doth eat and drink with 
publicans and sinners;" "this man receiveth sinners and 



286 JESUS. 

eateth with them." Even as an infant, by being laid in 
a manger, he was set forth as the sinner's friend. 

Come to him, ye that are weary and heavy laden ! 
Come to him, ye that are broken in spirit, ye who are 
bowed down in soul ! Come to him, ye that despise 
yourselves and are despised of others ! Come to him, 
publican and harlot ! Come to him, thief and drunkard ! 
In the manger there he lies, unguarded from your touch 
and unshielded from your gaze. Bow the knee, and kiss 
the Son of God; accept him as your Savior, for he puts 
himself into that manger that you may approach him. 
The throne of Solomon might awe you, but the manger 
of the Son of David must invite you. 

JESUS AND THE PALACE. 

The palaces of emperors and the halls of kings 
afforded the royal stranger no refuge ? Alas ! my breth- 
ren, seldom is there room for Christ in palaces ! How 
could the kings of earth receive the Lord ? He is the 
Prince of Peace, and they delight in war ! He breaks 
their bows and cuts their spears in sunder ; he burneth 
their war-chariots in the fire. How could kings accept 
the humble Savior ? They love grandeur and pomp, and 
he is all simplicity and meakness. He is a carpenter's 
son, and the fisherman's companion. How can princes 
find room for the new-born monarch ? Why, he teaches 
us to do to others as we would that they should do to 
us, and this is a thing which kings would find very hard 
to reconcile with the knavish tricks of politics and the 
grasping designs of ambition. O great ones of the earth, 
I am but little astonished that amid your glories, and 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 287 

pleasures, and wars, and councils, ye forget the Anointed, 
and cast out the Lord of All. There is no room for 
Christ with the kings. Look throughout the kingdoms 
of the earth now, and, with here and there an exception, 
it is still true — "The kings of the earth stand up, and 
the rulers of the earth take council together, against the 
Lord and against his Anointed. " 

In heaven we shall see here and there a monarch ; 
but ah ! how few; indeed, a child might write them. 
"Not many great men after the flesh, not many mighty 
are chosen. " 

State-chambers, cabinets, throne-rooms, and royal 
palaces, are about as little frequented by Christ as the 
jungles and swamps of India by the cautious traveler. 
He frequents cottages far more often than royal resi- 
dences, for there is no room for Jesus Christ in regal halls. 

JESUS AND THE LAW-MAKERS. 

But there were senators, there were forums of politi- 
cal discussion, there were the places where the repre- 
sentatives of the people make the laws, — was there no 
room for Christ there ? Alas ! my brethren, none, and 
to this day there is very little room for Christ in parlia- 
ments How seldom is religion recognized by politicians! 
Of course a State-religion, if it will consent to be a poor, 
tame, powerless thing, a lion with its teeth all drawn, 
its mane all shaven off, and its claws all trimmed — yes, 
that may be recognized ; but the true Christ, and they 
that follow Him and dare to obey His laws, in an evil 
generation, what room is there for such ? 

Christ and his gospel — oh ! this is sectarianism, and 



288 JB5US. 

is scarcely worthy of the notice of contempt. Who 
pleads for Jesus in the senate ? Is not his religion, under 
the name of sectarianism, the great terror of all parties ? 
Who quotes his golden rule as a direction for prime min- 
isters, or preaches Christ-like forgiveness as a rule for 
national policy ? 

One or two will give him a good word, but if it be 
put to the vote whether the Lord Jesus should be obeyed 
or no, it will be many a day before the ayes have it. 
Parties, policies, place-hunters, and pleasure-seekers 
exclude the Representative of Heaven from a place 
among representatives of Earth. 

JESUS AND SOCIETY. 

Might there not be found some room for Christ in 
what is called good society ? Were there not in Bethle- 
hem some people that were very respectable, who kept 
themselves aloof from the common multitude ; persons 
of reputation and standing — could not they find room for 
Christ ? Ah ! dear friends, it is too much the case that 
there is no room for him in what is called good society. 
There is use for all the silly little forms by which men 
choose to trammel themselves ; room for the vain niceties 
of etiquette ; room for frivolous conversation ; room for 
the adoration of the body; there is room for the setting 
up of this and that as the idol of the hour, but there is 
too little room for Christ, and it is far from fashionable 
to follow the Lord fully. 

The advent of Christ would be the last thing which 
gay society would desire; the very mention of his name 
by the lips of love would cause a strange sensation. 
Should you begin to talk about the things of Christ in 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 289 

many a circle, you would be tabooed at once. ' * I will 
never ask that man to my house again," so-and-so would 
say, "if he must bring his religion with him." Folly 
and finery, rank and honor, jewels and glitter, frivolity 
and fashion, all report, that there is no room for Jesus in 
their abodes. 

JESUS AND COMMERCE. 

But is there not room for him on the exchange ? Can- 
not he be taken to the marts of commerce ? Here are 
the shop-keepers of a shop-keeping nation — is there not 
room for Christ here ? Ah ! dear friends, how little of 
the spirit, and life, and doctrine of Christ can be found 
here ! The trader finds it inconvenient to be too scrupu- 
lous ; the merchant often discovers that if he is to make 
a fortune he must break his conscience. How many 
there are — well, I will not say they tell lies directly, but 
still, still, still — I had better say it plainly — they do lie 
indirectly with a vengeance. 

Who does not know as he rides along that there must 
be many liars abroad ? for almost every house you see is 
"The cheapest house in London," which can hardly be ; 
full sure they cannot all be cheapest ! What sharp prac- 
tice some indulge in ! What puffery and falsehood ! 
What cunning and sleight of hand ! What woes would 
my Master pronounce on some of you if he looked into 
your shop windows, or stood behind your counters. 
Bankruptcies, swindlings, frauds are so abundant that in 
hosts of cases there is no room for Jesus in the mart or 
the shop. 

JESUS AND THE UNIVERSITY. 

Then there are the schools of the philosophers, surely 



290 JESUS. 



they will entertain him. The wise men will find in him 
incarnate wisdom ; he, who as a youth is to become the 
teacher of doctors, who will sit down and ask them ques- 
tions and receive their answers, surely he will find room 
at once among the Grecian sages, and men of sense and 
wit will honor him. 

1 ' Room for him, Socrates and Plato ! Stoics and 
Epicurians give ye way; and you, ye teachers of Israel, 
vacate your seats; if there is no room for this child with- 
out your going, go; we must have him in the schools of 
philosophy if we put you all forth. " 

No, dear friends, but it is not so; there is very little 
room for Christ in colleges and universities, very little 
room for him in the seats of learning. How often learn- 
ing helps men to raise objections to Christ ! Too often 
learning is the forge where the nails are made for Christ's 
crucifixion ; too often human wit has become the artificer 
who has pointed the spear and made the shaft with 
which his heart should be pierced. We must say it, that 
philosophy, falsely so called (for true philosophy, if it 
were handled aright, must ever be Christ's friend) philoso- 
phy, falsely so called, hath done mischief to Christ, but 
seldom hath it served his cause. 

A few with splendid talents, a few of the erudite and 
profound, have bowed like children at the feet of the 
Babe of Bethlehem, and have been honored in bowing 
there, but too many, conscious of their knowledge, stiff 
and stern in their conceit of wisdom, have said, "Who 
is Christ, that we should acknowledge him ?" They 
found no room for him in the schools. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — -C. H. SPURGEON. 291 

JESUS AND THE SANHEDRIM. 

But there was surely one place where he could go — 
it was the Sanhedrim, where the elders sit. Or could he 
not be housed in the priestly chamber where the priests 
assemble with the Levites. Was there not room for him 
in the temple or the synagogue ? No, he found no shelter 
there ; it was there, his whole life long, that he found 
his most ferocious enemies. Not the common multitude, 
but the priests were the instigators of his death ; the 
priests moved the people to say, "Not this man, but 
Barabbas. " 

The priests paid out their shekels to bribe the popu- 
lar voice, and then Christ was hounded to his death. 
Surely there ought to have been room for him in the 
Church of his own people ; but there was not. Too 
often in the priestly church, when once it becomes recog- 
nized and mounts to dignity, there is no room for Christ. 
I allude not now to any one denomination, but take the 
whole sweep of Christendom, and it is strange that when 
the Lord comes to his own his own receive him not. 
The most accursed enemies of true religion have been 
the men who pretended to be its advocates. It is little 
marvel when bishops undermine the popular faith in 
revelation ; this is neither their first nor last offence. 
Who burned the martyrs, and made Smithfield a field of 
blood, a burning, fiery furnace, a great altar for the 
Most High of God ? Why, those who professed to be 
Anointed of the Lord, whose shaven crowns had received 
episcopal benediction. Who put John Bunyan in prison ? 
Who chased such men as Owen and the Puritans from 
their pulpits ? Who harried the Covenanters upon the 



292 JESUS. 

mountains ? Who, Sirs, but the professed messengers of 
heaven and priests of God ? Who have hunted the bap- 
tized saints in every land, and hunt them still in many a 
Continental state ? The priests ever; there is no room 
for Christ with the prophets of Baal, the servants of 
Babylon. The false hirelings that are not Christ's shep- 
herds, and love not his sheep, have ever been the most 
ferocious enemies of our God and of his Christ. There 
is no room for him where his name is chanted in solemn 
hymns and his image lifted up amid smoke of incense. 
Go where he will, and there is no space for the Prince of 
Peace but with the humble and contrite spirits which by 
grace he prepares to yield him shelter. 

JESUS AND THE FACTORY. 

I address many who are working-men. You are em- 
ployed among a great many artisans day after day; do 
you not find, brethren — I know you do — that there is 
no room for Christ in the workshop ? There is room 
there for everything else; there is room for swearing; 
there is room for drunkenness; there is room for lewd 
conversation; there is room for politics, slanders, or infi- 
delities; but there is no room for Christ. 

Too many of our workingmen think religion would be 
an incumbrance, a chain, a miserable prison to them. 
They can frequent the theatre, or listen in a lecture hall, 
but the house of God is too dreary for them. I wish I 
were not compelled to say so, but truly in our factories, 
workshops, and foundries there is no room for Christ. 
The world is elbowing and pushing for more room, till 
there is scarce a corner left where the Babe of Bethle- 
hem can be laid. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 293 

JESUS AND THE MODERN INN. 

As for the inns of modern times — who would think 
of finding Christ there ? Putting out of our catalogue 
those hotels and roadside houses which are needed for 
accommodation of travelers, what greater curse have we 
than our taverns and pot-houses What wider gates of 
hell ? Who would ever resort to such places as we have, 
flaring with gas light, at the corners of all our streets to 
find Christ there ? As well might we expect to find him 
in the bottomless pit ! We should be just as likely to 
look for angels in hell, as to look for Christ in a gin 
palace ! He who is separate from sinners, finds no fit 
society in the reeking temple of Bacchus. There is no 
room for Jesus in the inn. 

I think I would rather rot or feed the crows, than 
earn my daily bread by the pence of fools, the hard earn- 
ings of the poor man, stolen from his ragged children, 
and his emaciated wife. 

What do many publicans fatten upon but the flesh, 
and bones, and blood, and souls of men. He who grows 
rich on the fruits of vice is a beast preparing for the 
slaughter. Truly, there is no room for Christ among the 
drunkards of Ephraim. They who have anything to do 
with Christ should hear him say, ' ' Come ye out from 
among them, and be ye separate; touch not the unclean 
thing, and I will receive you, and be a father unto you, 
and ye shall be my sons and my daughters." There is no 
room for Christ now-a-days even in the places of public 
resort. 

JESUS AND THE HUMAN HEART. 

This brings me to my fourth head, which is the most 



294 JESUS. 



pertinent, and the most necessary to dwell upon for a 
moment. Have you room for Christ ? 

As the palace, and the forum, and the inn, have no 
room for Christ, and as the places of public resort have 
none, have you room for Christ ? "Well," says one, "I 
have room for him, but I am not worthy that he should 
come to me." Ah ! I did not ask about worthiness; have 
you room for him? " Oh," says one, " I have an empty 
void, the world can never fill !" Ah ! I see you have room 
for him. "Oh ! but the room I have in my heart is so 
base !" So was the monger. " But it is so despicable !" 
So was the manger a thing to be derpised. " Ah ! but 
my heart is so foul . So, perhaps, the manger may 
have been. "Oh ! but I feel it is a place not at all lit 
for Christ!" Nor was the manger a place fit for him, 
and yet there was he laid. " Oh ! but I have been such 
a sinner; I feel as if my heart had been a den of beasts 
and devils !" Well, the manger had been a place where 
beasts had fed. 

Have you room for Him ? Never mind what the past 
has been; he can forget and forgive. It mattereth not 
what even the present state may be if thou mournest it. 
If thou hast but room for Christ he will come and be thy 
guest. Do not say, I pray you, "I hope I shall have 
room for him ; " the time is come that he shall be born; 
Mary cannot wait months and years. Oh ! sinner, if 
thou hast room for him, let him be born in thy soul to- 
day. "To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your 
hearts as in the provocation." " To-day is the accepted 
time; to-day is the day of salvation." 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 295 

Room for Jesus ! Room for Jesus now ! ' ' Oh !" says 
one, " I have room for him, but will he come ?" 

Will he come indeed ! Do you but set the door of 
your heart open, do but say, ''Jesus, Master, all unworthy 
and unclean I look to thee; come, lodge within my heart," 
and he will come to thee, and he will cleanse the manger 
of thy heart, nay, will transform it into a golden throne, 
and there he will sit and reign for ever and for ever. Oh! 
I have such a free Christ to preach this morning ! I 
would I could preach him better. I have such a precious, 
loving Jesus to preach, he is willing to find a home in 
humble hearts. What ! are there no hearts here this 
morning that will take him in ? Must my eye glance 
round these galleries and look at many of you who are 
still without him, and are there none who will say, 
"Come in, come in?" 

Oh ! it shall be a happy day for you if you shall be 
enabled to take him in your arms and receive him as the 
consolation of Israel ! You may then look forward even 
to death with joy, and say with Simeon, "Lord, now 
lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy 
word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. " 

My Master wants room ! Room for him ! Room for 
him ! I, his herald, cry aloud, Room for the Savior ! 
Room ! Here is my royal Master — have you room for 
him ? Here is the Son of God made flesh — have you 
room for him ? Here is he who can forgive all sin — have 
you room for him ? Here is he who can take you up out 
of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay — have you 
room for him ? Here is he who, when he cometh in, will 
never go out again, but abide with you for ever to make 



296 JESUS. 

your heart a heaven of joy and bliss for you — have you 
room for him ? Tis all I ask. Your emptiness, your 
nothingness, your want of feeling, your want of good- 
ness, your want of grace — all these will be but room for 
him. Have you room for him ? Oh ! Spirit of God, 
lead many to say, ' ' Yes, my heart is ready. " Ah ! then 
he will come and dwell with you. 

JESUS PUBLISHED. 

To begin, then, in the first place, we find that some 
celebrated the Savior's birth by publishing abroad what 
they had heard and seen; and truly we may say of them 
that they had something to rehearse in men's ears, well 
worth the telling. That for which prophets and kings 
had waited long, had at last arrived, and arrived to them. 
They had found out the answer to the perpetual riddle. 
They might have run through the streets with the ancient 
philosopher, crying, "Eureka! Eureka!" for their dis- 
covery was far superior to his. They had found out no 
solution to a mechanical problem or metaphysical dilem- 
ma, but their discovery was second to none ever made 
by men in real value, since it has been like the leaves of 
the tree of life to heal the nations, and a river of water 
of life to make glad the city of God. 

They had seen angels; they had heard them sing a 
song all strange and new. They had seen more than 
angels — they had beheld the angel's King, the Angel of 
the Covenant whom we delight in. They had heard the 
music of heaven, and when near that manger the ear of 
their faith had heard the music of earth's hope, a mystic 
harmony which should ring all down the ages, — the grave, 
sweet melody of hearts attuned to praise the Lord, and 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 297 

the glorious swell of the holy joy of God and man 
rejoicing in glad accord. They had seen God incarnate, 
— such a sight that he who gazeth on it must feel his 
tongue unloosed, unless, indeed, an unspeakable astonish- 
ment should make him dumb. 

Be silent when their eye had seen such a vision ! 
Impossible ! To the first person they met outside that 
lowly stable door they began to tell their matchless tale, 
and they wearied not till nightfall, crying, "Come and 
worship ! Come and worship Christ, the new-born King!" 

As for us, beloved, have we also not something to 
relate which demands utterance ? If we talk of Jesus, 
who can blame us ? This, indeed, might make the tongue 
of him that sleeps to move, — the mystery of God in- 
carnate for our sake, bleeding and dying that we might 
neither bleed nor die, descending that we might ascend, 
and wrapped in swaddling bands that we might be un- 
wrapped of the grave-clothes of corruption. Here is 
such a story, so profitable to all hearers that he who re- 
peats it the most often does best, and he who speaks the 
least hath most reason to accuse himself for sinful 
silence. 

They had something to tell, and that something had 
in it the inimitable blending which is the secret sign and 
royal mark of Divine authorship; a peerless marrying of 
sublimity and simplicity; angels singing ! — singing to 
shepherds ! Heaven, bright with glory! bright at mid- 
night ! God ! A Babe ! ! The Infinite ! An Infant of 
a span long ! ! The Ancient of Days ! Born of a woman ! ! 

What more simple than the inn, the manger, a car- 
penter, a carpenter's wife, a child ? What more tublime 



298 JESUS. 

than a "multitude of the heavenly host* waking the 
midnight with their joyous chorales, and God himself in 
human flesh made manifest. 

A child is but an ordinary sight ; but what a marvel 
to see that Word which was " in the beginning with God, 
tabernacling among us that we might behold his glory — 
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of 
grace and truth ?" 

Brethren, we have a tale to tell, as simple as sub- 
lime. What simpler ? — ' ' Believe and live. " What more 
sublime ? — M God was in Christ reconciling the world un- 
to himself!" A system of salvation so wonderful that 
angelic minds cannot but adore as they meditate upon it; 
and yet so simple that the children in the temple may 
fitly hymn its virtues as they sing, ' ' Hosanna ! Blessed 
is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." What a 
splendid combining of the sublime and the simple have 
we in the great atonement offered by the incarnate 
Savior ! Oh make known to all men this saving truth! 

JESUS THE WONDERFUL. 

Let me suggest to you that holy wonder at what God 
has done should be very natural to you. That God should 
consider his fallen creature, man, and instead of sweep- 
ing him away with the besom of destruction, should 
devise a wonderful scheme for his redemption, and that 
he should himself undertake to be man's Redeemer, and 
to pay his ransom price, is, indeed, marvelous ! 

Probably it is most marvelous to you in its relation to 
yourself, that you should be redeemed by blood; that God 
should forsake the thrones and royalties above to suffer 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 299 

ignominiously below for you. If you know yourself you 
can never see any adequate motive or reason in your own 
flesh for such a deed as this. 

" Why such love to me ?" you will say. 

If David, sitting in his house, could only say, "Who 
am I, O Lord God, and what is mine house, that thou 
hast brought me hitherto ?" what should you and I say? 
Had we been the most meritorious of individuals, and 
had unceasingly kept the Lord's commands, we could not 
have desired such a priceless boon as incarnation; but 
sinners, offenders, who revolted and went from God, 
further and further, what shall we say of this incarnate 
God dying for us, but ' ' Herein is love, not that we loved 
God, but that God loved us." 

Let your soul lose itself in wonder, for wonder, dear 
friends, is in this way a very practical emotion. Holy 
wonder will lead you to grateful worship; being astonished 
at what God has done, you will pour out your soul with 
astonishment at the foot of the golden throne with the 
song, "Blessing, and honor, and glory, and majesty, and 
power, and dominion, and might be unto him who sitteth 
on the throne and does these great things to me." 

Filled with the wonder, it will cause you a godly 
watchfulness; you will be afraid to sin against such love 
as this. Feeling the presence of the mighty God in the 
gift of his dear Son, you will put off your shoes from off 
your feet, because the place whereon you stand is holy 
ground. You will be moved at the same time to a glori- 
ous hope. If Jesus has given himself to you, if he has 
done this marvelous thing on your behalf, you will feel 
that heaven itself is not too great for your expectation, 



300 JESUS. 

and that the rivers of pleasure at God's right hand are 
not too sweet or too deep for you to drink thereof. 

Who can be astonished at anything when he has once 
been astonished at the manger and the cross ? What is 
there wonderful left after one has seen the Savior ? The 
nine wonders of the world ! Why, you may put them 
all into a nutshell — machinery and modern art can excel 
them all ; but this one wonder is not the wonder of the 
earth only, but of heaven and earth, and even hell itself. 
It is not the wonder of the olden time, but the wonder 
ol all time and the wonder of eternity. 

They who see human wonders a few times, at last 
cease to be astonished; the noblest pile that architect 
ever raised, at last fails to impress the onlooker; but not 
so this marvelous temple of incarnate Deity; the more 
we look the more we are astonished, the more we become 
accustomed to it, the more have we a sense of its sur- 
prising splendor of love and grace. There is more of 
God, let us say, to be seen in the manger and the cross, 
than in the sparkling stars above, the rolling deep below, 
the towering mountain, the teeming valleys, the abodes 
of life, or the abyss of death. Let us then spend some 
choice hours of this festive season in holy wonder, such 
as will produce gratitude, worship, love, and confidence. 

JESUS GLORIFIED. 

The last piece of holy Christmas work is to come. 
"The shepherds returned," we read in the twentieth 
verse, "Glorifying and praising God for all the things 
that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them." 
Returned to what ? Returned to business, to look after 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 301 

the lambs and sheep again. Then, if we desire to glorify 
God, we need not give up our business. 

Some people get the notion into their heads that the 
only way in which they can live for God is by becoming 
ministers, missionaries, or Bible women. Alas ! how 
many of us would be shut out from any opportunity of 
magnifying the Most High if this were the case. The 
shepherds went back to the sheep-pens, glorifying and 
praising God. 

Beloved, it is not office, it is earnestness; it is not 
position, it is grace which will enable us to glorify God. 
God is most surely glorified in that cobbler's stall, where 
the godly worker, as he plies the awl, sings of the Savior's 
love, ay, glorified far more than in many a prebendal 
stall where official religiousness performs its scanty 
duties. 

The name of Jesus is glorified by yonder carter as he 
drives his horse and blesses his God, or speaks to his 
fellow laborer by the roadside as much as by yonder 
divine who, throughout the country like Boanerges, is 
thundering out the gospel. 

God is glorified by our abiding in our vocation. Take 
care you do not fall out of the path of duty by leaving 
your calling, and take care you do not dishonor your 
profession while in it; think not much of yourselves, but 
do not think too little of your callings. There is no 
trade which is not sanctified by the gospel. If you turn 
to the Bible, you will find the most menial forms of labor 
have been in some way or other connected with the most 
daring deeds of faith, or else with persons whose lives 
have been otherwise illustrious; keep to your calling, 



302 JESUS. 



brother, keep to your calling ! Whatever God has made 
thee, when he calls thee, abide in that, unless thou art 
quite sure that he calls thee to something else. The 
shepherds glorified God though they went to their trade. 

They glorified God though they were shepherds. 

As we remarked, they were not men of learning. So 
far from having an extensive library full of books, it is 
probable they could not read a word, yet they glorified 
God. 

This takes away all excuse for you good people who 
say, "I am no scholar; I never had any education, I 
never went even to a Sunday school." 

Ah ! but if your heart is right, you can glorify God. 
Never mind, Sarah, do not be cast down because you 
know so little; learn more if you can, but make good use 
of what you do know. Never mind, John ; it is, indeed, 
a pity that you should have had to toil so early, as not 
to have acquired even the rudiments of knowledge; but 
do not think that you cannot glorify God. If you would 
praise God, live a holy life; you can do that by his grace, 
at any rate, without scholarship. If thou wouldst do 
good to others, be good thyself ; and that is a way which 
is as open to the most illiterate as it is to the best taught. 
Be of good courage ! Shepherds glorified God, and so 
may you. Remember, there is one thing in which they 
had a preference over the wise men. The wise men 
wanted a star to lead them ; the shepherds did not. The 
wise men went wrong even with a star, stumbling into 
Jerusalem ; the shepherds went straight away to Bethle- 
hem. Simple minds sometimes find a glorified Christ 
where learned heads, much puzzled with their lore, miss 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 303 

him. A good doctor used to say, ' ' Lo, thes& simpktons 
have entered into the kingdom, while we learned men 
have been fumbling for the latch. " It is often so; and 
so, ye simple minds, be ye comforted and glad. 

JESUS THE SAVIOR. 

Observe, the angel told them somewhat of his office, 
as well as of his birth. ' ' Unto you is born this day a 
Savior." The very object for which he was born and 
came into this world was that he might deliver us from 
sin. What, then, was it that made us afraid ? Were 
we not afraid of God because we felv that we were lost 
through sin ? Well, then, here is joy upon joy. Here 
is not only the Lord come among us as a man, but made- 
man in order to save man from that which separated him 
from God. 

I feel as if I could burst out into a weeping for some 
here who have been spending their living riotously and 
gone far away from God, their Father, by their evil ways. 
I know they are afraid to come back. They think that 
the Lord will not receive them, that there is no mercy 
for such sinners as they have been. Oh, but think of it. 
— Jesus Christ has come to seek and to save that which 
was lost. He was born to save. If he does not save he 
was born in vain, for the object of his birth was salva- 
tion. If he shall not be a Savior, then the mission of 
God to earth has missed its end, for its design was that 
lost sinners might be saved. Lost one, lost one, if there 
were news that an angel had come to save thee there 
might be some cheer in it ; but there are better tidings 
still. God has come; the Infinite, the Almighty, has 
stooped from the highest heaven that he may pick thee 



304 JESUS. 

up, a poor undone and worthless worm. Is there not 
comfort here ? Does not the Incarnate Savior take away 
the horrible dread which hangs over men like a black 
pall ? 

Note that the angel did not forget to describe the 
person of this Savior — "A Savior which is Christ." 
There is his manhood. As man he was Anointed. " The 
Lord." There is his Godhead. Yes, this is the solid 
truth upon which we point our foot. Jesus of Nazareth 
is God ; he who was conceived in the womb of the virgin 
and born in Bethlehem's manger is now, and always was, 
God over all, blessed for ever. There is no gospel if he 
be not God. It is no news to me to tell me that a great 
prophet is born. There have been great prophets before; 
but the world has never been redeemed from evil by mere 
testimony to the truth, and never will be. Tell me that 
God is born, that God himself has espoused our nature, 
and taken it into union with himself, then the bells of 
my heart ring merry peals, for now may I come to God 
since God has come to me. 

We have not a nominal Savior, but a Savior fully 
equipped ; one who in all points is like ourselves, for he 
is man, but in all points fit to help the feebleness which 
he has espoused, for he is the Anointed man. 

See what an intimate mingling of the divine and 
human is found in the angel's song. They sing of him 
as "a Savior," and a Savior must of necessity be divine, 
in order to save from death and hell ; and yet the title is 
drawn from his dealings with humanity. Then they 
sing of him as "Christ," and that must be human, for 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 305 

only man can be Anointed, yet that unction comes from 
the Godhead. 

Sound forth the jubilee trumpets for this marvelously 
Anointed One, and rejoice in him who is your priest to 
cleanse you, your prophet to instruct you, and your king 
to deliver you. The angels sang of him as Lord, and 
yet as born ; so here again the godlike in dominion 
is joined with the human in birth. How well did the 
words and the sense agree. 

The angel further went on to give these shepherds 
cause for joy by telling them that while their Savior was 
born to be the Lord, yet he was so born in lowliness that 
they would find him a babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, 
lying in a manger. Is there cause of joy there ? I say, 
ay, indeed there is, for it is the terror of the Godhead 
which keeps the sinner oftentimes away from reconcilia- 
tion ; but see how the Godhead has graciously concealed 
itself in a babe, a little babe, — a babe that needed to be 
wrapped in swaddling clothes like any other new-born 
child. Who feareth to approach him ? Who ever heard 
of trembling in the presence of a babe ? Yet is the God- 
head there. My soul, when thou canst not for very 
amazement stand on the sea of glass mingled with fire, 
when the divine glory is like a consuming fire to thy spirit, 
and the sacred majesty of heaven is altogether overpower- 
ing to thee, then come thou to this babe, and say, " Yet 
God is here, and here can I meet him in the person of 
his dear Son, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the 
Godhead bodily." 

Oh, what bliss there is in incarnation if we remember 
that herein God's omnipotence cometh down to man's 



306 JESUS. 



feebleness, and infinite majesty stoops to man's infirmity. 
Now mark, the shepherds were not to find this babe 
wrapped in Tyrian purple nor swathed in choicest fabrics 
fetched from afar. 

"No crown bedecks his forehead fair, 
No pearl, nor gem, nor silk is there." 

Nor would they discover him in the marble halls of 
princes, nor guarded by praetorian legionaries, nor lackied 
by vassal sovereigns, but they would find him the babe 
of a peasant woman, of princely lineage, it is true, but 
of a family whose stock was dry and forgotten in Israel. 
The child was reputed to be the son of a carpenter. If 
you looked on the humble father and mother, and at the 
poor bed they had made up, where aforetime oxen had 
come to feed, you would say, "This is condescension 
indeed." 

O ye poor, be glad, for Jesus is born in poverty, and 
cradled in a manger. O ye sons of toil rejoice, for the 
Savior is born of a lowly virgin, and a carpenter is his 
foster father. O ye people, oftentimes despised and 
downtrodden, the Prince of the Democracy is born, one 
chosen out of the people is exalted to the throne. O ye 
who call yourselves the aristocracy, behold the Prince of 
the kings of the earth, whose lineage is divine, and yet 
there is no room for him in the inn. 

Behold, O men, the Son of God, who is bone of your 
bone, intimate with all your griefs, who, in his after life, 
hungered as ye hunger, was weary as ye are weary, and 
wore humble garments like your own ; yea, suffered 
worse poverty than you, for he was without a place 
whereon to lay his head. Let the heavens and the earth 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 307 

be glad, since God hath so fully, so truly come down to 
man. 

JESUS THE REPRESENTATIVE MAN. 

You will observe, dear friends, however, that the pith 
of what the angel said lay in this. " Unto you." You 
will never get true comfort from the incarnate Savior till 
you perceive your personal interest in him. Christ as 
man was a representative man. There never were but 
two thoroughly representative men ; the first is Adam ; 
Adam obedient, the whole race stands, Adam disobedient 
the whole race falls. "In Adam all die." 

Now, the man Jesus is the second great representa- 
tive man. He does not represent the whole human race, 
he represents as many as his Father gave him ; he rep- 
resents a chosen company. Now, whatever Christ did, 
if you belong to those who are in him, he did for you. 
So that Christ circumcised or Christ crucified, Christ 
dead or Christ living, Christ buried or Christ risen, you 
are a partaker of all that he did and all that he is, for 
you are reckoned as one with him. 

See, then, the joy and comfort of the incarnation of 
Christ. Does Jesus, as man, take manhood up to 
heaven ? He has taken me up there, Father Adam fell, 
and I fell for I was in him. The Lord Jesus Christ rises, 
and I rise if I am in him. 

See, beloved, when Jesus Christ was nailed to the 
cross all his elect were nailed there, and they suffered 
and died in him. When he was put into the grave the 
whole of his people lay slumbering there in him, for they 
were in the loins of Jesus as Levi was in the loins of 
Abraham ; and when he rose they rose and received the 



308 JESUS. 

J* * - ■ n i i ■ ■ . . , ■ i i ■ I, 

foretaste of their future resurrection, because he lives 
they shall live also ; and now that he has gone up on 
high to claim the throne, he has claimed the throne for 
every soul that is in him. 

Oh, this is joy indeed ! Then how can I be afraid 
of God, for this day, by faith, I, a poor undeserving 
sinner, having put my trust in Jesus, am bold to say that 
I sit upon the throne of God. Think not that we have 
said too much, for in the person of Christ every believer 
is raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly 
places in Christ Jesus. Because, as Jesus is there, rep- 
resentatively, we are each one of us there in him. 

4 'He shall be great." — Luke i. 32. 

Strictly speaking, I suppose these words refer to the 
human nature of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is as to his 
humanity that Christ was born of Mary. The context 
runs thus — (i Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, 
and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. 
He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the 
Highest ; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne 
of his father David ; And he shall reign over the house 
of Jaeob forever ; and of his kingdom there shall be 
no end." 

The angel of the Lord thus spake concerning the 
manhood of "that holy thing " that should be born of 
the favored virgin by the overshadowing of the power of 
the Highest. As to his divinity, we must speak concern- 
ing him in another style than this : but, as a man, he was 
born of the virgin, and it was said to her before his 
birth, "He shall be great.'' 

The man Christ Jesus stooped very low. In his first 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 309 

estate he was not great ; he was very little when he hung 
upon his mother's breast. In his after estate he was not 
great ; but despised, rejected, and crucified. Indeed, he 
was so poor that he had not where to lay his head ; and 
he was so cast out by the tongues of men that they 
called him a "fellow, " mentioned him among drunken 
men and wine-bibbers, and even accused him of having 
a devil, and being mad. In the esteem of the great 
ones of the earth he was an ignorant Galilean of whom 
they said, "We know not whence he is." 

His life binds up more fitly with the lowly annals of 
the poor than with the court-circular of whatever stood 
for that in Caesar's day. In his own time his enemies 
could not find a word base enough to express their con- 
tempt of him. He was brought very low in his trial, 
condemnation and suffering. Who thought him great 
when he was covered with bloody sweat, or when he was 
sold at the price of a slave, or when a guard came out 
against him with swords, and with lanterns, and with 
torches, as if he had been a thief ? Who thought him 
great when they bound him and led him to the judgment- 
seat as a malefactor ? or when the abjects smote him, 
blindfolded him, and spat in his face ? or when he was 
scourged, led through the streets bearing his cross, and 
afterward hung up between two thieves to die ? 

Truly he was brought very low, and a sword pierced 
through his mother's heart as she saw the sufferings of 
her holy Son. When she knew that he was dead, and 
buried in a borrowed tomb, she must have painfully 
pondered in her heart the words from heaven concerning 
him, and thought within herself, ' ' The angel said he 



310 JESUS. 

should be great, but who is made so vile as he ? He 
said that he should be called the 'Son of the Highest,' 
but, lo ! he is brought into the dust of death ; and men 
seal his sepulchre, and cast out his name as evil." 

But our Lord Jesus is also man, and this makes the 
singularity of his person, that he should be perfectly and 
purely God, and as truly and really man. He is not' 
humanity deified ; he is not Godhead humanized. I have 
admitted latitude of expression ; but there is, in fact, no 
confusion of the substance. He is God. He is man. 
He is all that God is, and all that man is as God created 
him. He is as truly God as if he were not man, and yet 
as completely and perfectly man as if he were not God. 
Think of this wondrous combination ! a perfect man- 
hood without spot or stain of original or actual sin, and 
then the glorious Godhead combined with it ! 

Said I not truly that Jesus stands alone ? He is not 
greatest of the great ; but great where all else are little. 
He is not something among all ; but all where all else 
are nothing. 

Who shall be compared with him ? He counts it not 
robbery to be equal with God, and among men he is the 
Firstborn of every creature; among the risen ones he is 
the Firstborn by his resurrection from the dead ; among 
the glorified he is the source and object of glory. 

I cannot compass his nature : who shall declare his 
generation ? He is one with us, and yet inconceivably 
beyond us. Our nature is limited, sinful, fallen ; but his 
nature is unbounded, holy, divine. When Jehovah looks 
on us we ask, * * What is man that thou art mindful of 
him ? and the son of raan, that thou yisitest him P' But 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. C. H. SPURGEON. 311 

" when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, 
he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him." 
Shall it not truly be said as to his nature, ' • He is great" ? 

GOD INCARNATE. 

The incarnation of the Son of God was one of the 
greatest events in the history of the universe. Its actual 
occurrence was not, however, known to all mankind, but 
was specially revealed to the shepherds of Bethlehem 
and to certain wise men of the east. 

To shepherds — the illiterate, men little versed in 
human learning — the angels in choral song made known 
the birth of the Savior, Christ the Lord, and they has- 
tened to Bethlehem to see the great sight : while the 
Scribes, the writers of the law and the expounders of it, 
knew nothing of the long-promised birth of the Messias. 
No angelic bands entered the assembly of the Sanhedrim 
and proclaimed that the Christ was born ; and when the 
chief priests and Pharisees were met together, though 
they gathered around copies of the law to consider where 
Christ should be born, yet it was not known to them that 
he was actually come, nor do they seem to have taken 
more than a passing interest in the matter, though they 
might have known that then was the time spoken of by 
the prophets when the great Messiah should come. How 
mysterious are the dispensations of grace; the base things 
are chosen and the eminent are passed by ! The advent 
of the Redeemer is revealed to the shepherds who kept 
their flocks of sheep by night, but not to the shepherds 
whose benighted sheep were left to stray. Admire there- 
in the sovereignty of God. 

The glad tidings were .made known also to wise men, 



312 JESUS. 

magi, students of the stars and of old prophetic books 
from the far-off east It would not be possible to tell 
how far off their native country lay ; it may have been so 
distant that the journey occupied nearly the whole of the 
cwo years of which they spake concerning the appear- 
ance of the star. Traveling was slow in those days, 
surrounded with difficulties and many dangers. They 
may have come from Persia, or India, or Tartary, or even 
from the mysterious land of Sinim, now known to us as 
China. If so, strange and uncouth must have been the 
speech of those who worshipped around the young child 
at Bethlehem, yet needed he no interpreter to under- 
stand and accept their adoration. Why was the birth of 
the King of the Jews made known to these foreigners, 
and not to those nearer home ? Why did the Lord 
select those who were so many hundreds of miles away, 
while the children of the kingdom, in whose very midst 
the Savior was brought forth, were yet strangely ignorant 
of his presence ? 

See here again another instance of the sovereignty of 
God. Both in shepherds and iu Eastern magi gathering 
around the young Child, I see God dispensing his favors 
as he wills ; and, as I see it, I exclaim, "I thank thee, 
O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast 
hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast 
revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father ; for so it 
seemed good in thy sight." 

Herein we see again another instance of God's sover- 
eign will ; for, as of old, there were many widows in 
Israel in the days of Elias, the prophet, but unto none 
of tbem was Elias sent, save unto the woman of Sarepta; 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 313 

so many there were who were called wise men among 
the Jews, but unto none of them did the star appear ; 
but it shone on Gentile eyes, and led a chosen company 
from the ends of the earth to bow at Emmanuel's feet. 

JESUS SOUGHT. 

Notice, however, that the wise men were not content 
with admitting their ignorance, but in their case there 
was information entreated. 

I cannot tell where they began to ask. They thought 
it likeliest that Jesus would be known at the metropolitan 
city. Was he not the King of the Jews ? where was he 
so certain to be known as at the capital ? They went, 
therefore to Jerusalem. 

Perhaps they asked the guards at the gate, ' ' Where 
is he that is born King of the Jews ?" and the guards 
laughed them to scorn, and replied, ' ' We know no king 
but Herod." 

Then they met a loiterer in the streets, and to him 
they said, ' ' Where is he that is born King of the Jews ?" 
and he answered, " What care I for such crazy questions? 
I am looking for a drinking companion," 

They asked a trader, but he sneered, and said, ' ' Never 
mind kings, what will you buy, or what have you to sell ?" 

4 'Where is he that is born King of the Jews?" said 
they to a Sadducee, and he replied, " Be not such fools 
as to talk in that fashion, or, if you do, pray call on my 
religious friend, the Pharisee." 

They passed a woman in the streets, and asked, 
" Where is he that is born King of the Jews?" but she 
said, ' ' My child is sick at home, I have enough to do to 



314 JESUS. 

think of my poor babe ; I care not who is born, or who 
may die beside. " 

When they went to the very highest quarters, they 
obtained but poor information, but they were not content 
till they had learned all that could be known. They did 
not know at first where the new-born King was, but they 
used every means to find him, and asked information on 
all hands. It is delightful to see the holy eagerness of a 
soul which God has quickened; it cries, "I must be 
saved; I know something of the way of salvation, I am 
grateful for that, but I do not know all I want to know, 
and I cannot rest satisfied till I do. If beneath the 
canopy of heaven a Savior is to be found, I will have 
him ; if that book can teach me how to be saved, I will 
turn its pages day and night ; if any book within my 
reach may help me, I will spare no midnight oil if I may 
but in the reading thereof find out Christ my Saviour. 
If there be one whose preaching has been blessed to the 
souls of others, I will hang on his lips, if perhaps the 
word may be blessed to me, for Christ I must have ; it is 
not I may or I may not have him, but I must have him; 
my hunger is great for this bread of heaven, my thirst 
insatiable for this water of life ; tell me, Christians, tell 
me, wise men, tell me, good men, tell me any of you 
who can tell, where is he that is born King of the Jews ? 
for Christ I must have, and I long to have him now." 

EMMANUEL. 

Those words, '■ being interpreted," salute my ear with 
much sweetness. Why should the word "Emmanuel" 
in the Hebrew, be interpreted at all ? Was it not to 



BICLE CHARACTERS. C. H. SPURGEON. 315 

show that it has reference to us Gentiles, and therefore 
it must needs be interpreted into one of the chief lan- 
guages of the then existing Gentile world, namely, the 
Greek. This "being interpreted" at Christ's birth, and 
the three languages employed in the inscription upon the 
cross at his death, show that he is not the Savior of the 
Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. 

As I walked along the quay at Marseilles, and marked 
the ships of all nations gathered in the port, I was very 
much interested by the inscriptions upon the shops and 
stores. The announcements of refreshments or of goods 
to be had within were not only printed in the French 
language, but in English, in Italian, in German, in Greek, 
sometimes in Russian and Swedish. 

Upon the shops of the sail-makers, the boat-builders, 
the ironmongers, or the dealers in ship stores, you read 
a polyglot announcement, setting forth the information 
to men of many lands. This was a clear indication that 
persons of all nation were invited to come and purchase, 
that they were expected to come, and that provision was 
made for their peculiar wants. "Being interpreted' 
must mean that different nations are addresed. 

We have the text put first in the Hebrew "Em- 
manuel," and afterwards it is translated into the Gentile 
tongue, "God with us;" "being interpreted," that we 
may know that we are invited, that we are welcome, that 
God has seen our necessities and provided for us, and 
that now we may really come, even we who were sinners 
of the Gentiles, and far off from God. Let us preserve 
with reverent love both forms of the precious name and 
wait the happy day when our Hebrew brethren shall 



316 JESUS. 

unite their "Emmanuel" with our "God with us." 

Our text speaks of a name of our Lord Jesus. It is 
said, "They shall call his name Emmanuel." 

In these days we call children by names which have 
no particular meaning. They are the names, perhaps, of 
father or mother, or some respected relative, but there 
is no special meaning, as a general rule, in our children's 
names. It was not so in the olden times. Then names 
meant something. Scriptural names, as a general rule, 
contain teaching, and especially is this the case in every 
name ascribed to the Lord Jesus. 

With him names indicate things. "His name shall 
be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the 
Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace," because he 
really is all these. 

His name is called Jesus, but not without a reason. 
By any other name Jesus would not be so sweet, because 
no other name could fairly describe his great work of 
saving his people from their sins. When he is said to be 
called this or that, it means that he really is so. I am 
not aware that anywhere in the New Testament our Lord 
is afterward called Emmanuel. I do not find his apostles, 
or any of his disciples, calling him by that name literally; 
but we find them all doing so in effect, for they speak of 
him as " God manifest in the flesh," and they say, " Ths 
word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld 
his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, 
full of grace and truth." 

They do not use the actual word, but they again in- 
terpret and give us free and instructive renderings, while 
they proclaim the sense of the august title and inform us 




Christ in The Synagogue. 
From the Painting by Gustave Dore. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 317 

in divers ways what is meant by God being with us in 
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

It is a glorious fact, of the highest importance, that 
since Christ was born into the world God is with us. 

You may divide the text, if you please, into two por- 
tions: — "God," and then "God with us." We must 
dwell with equal emphasis upon each word. Never let 
us for a moment hesitate as to the Godhead of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, for his Deity is a fundamental doctrine of 
the Christian faith. It may be we shall never understand 
fully how God and man could unite in one person, for 
who can by searching find out God. 

These great mysteries of Godliness, these "deep 
things of God," are beyond our measurement: our little 
skiff might be lost if we ventured so far out upon this 
vast, this infinite ocean, as to lose sight of the shore 
of plainly revealed truth. 

But let it remain as a matter of faith that Jesus 
Christ, even he who lay in Bethlehem's manger, and was 
carried in a womnn's arms, and lived a suffering life and 
died on a malefactor's cross, was, nevertheless, ' ' God 
over all, blessed for ever," "upholding all things by the 
word of his power." 

He was not an angel — that the apostle has abundantly 
dispvoved in the first and second chapters of the epistle 
} to the Hebrews: he could not have been an angel, for 
honors were ascribed to him which were never bestowed 
on angels. 

He was no subordinate deity or being elevated to the 
Godhead, as some have absurdly said — all these things 
are dreams and falsehoods ; he was as surely God as God 



\ 



318 JESUS. 

can be, one with the Father and the ever-blessed Spirit. 
If it were not so, not only would the great strength of 
our hope be gone, but as to this text the sweetness had 
evaporated altogether. The very essence and glory of 
the incarnation is that he was God who was veiled in 
human flesh: if it was any other being who thus came to 
us in human flesh, I see nothing very remarkable in it, 
nothing comforting, certainly. 

That an angel should become a man is a matter of 
no great consequence to me: that some other superior 
being should assume the nature of man brings no joy to 
my heart, and opens no well of consolation to me. But 
"God with us" is exquisite delight. " God with us": all 
that "God" means, the Deity, the infinite Jehovah with 
us: this, this is worthy of the burst of midnight song, 
when angels startled the shepherds with their carols, 
singing, ' ' Glory to God in the highest, and on earth 
peace, good will to men." 

This was worthy of the foresight of seers and prophets, 
worthy of a new star in the heavens, worthy of the care 
which inspiration has manifested to preserve the record. 
This, too, was worthy of the martyr deaths of apostles 
and confessors who counted not their lives dear unto 
them for the sake of the incarnate God ; and this, my 
brethren, is worthy at this day of your most earnest en- 
deavors to spread the glad tidings worthy af a holy life 
to illustrate its blessed influences, and worthy of a joyful 
death to prove its consoling power. 

Here is the first truth of our holy faith — "Without 
controversy great is the mystery ot godliness, God was 
manifest in the flesh." He who was born at Bethlehem 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGBON. 319 

is God, and "God with us." God — there lies the 
majesty; "God with us," there lies the mercy. God— 
therein is glory; "God with us" therein is grace. 

God alone might well strike us with terror; but "God 
with us" inspires us with hope and confidence. Take 
my text as a whole, and carry it in your bosoms as a 
bundle of sweet spices to perfume your hearts with peace 
and joy. May the Holy Spirit open to you the truth, 
and the truth to you. 

Christ Jesus was the man of men, the second Adam, 
the model representative man. Think not of him as a 
deified man any more than you would dare to regard him 
as a humanized God, or demigod. 

Do not confound the natures nor divide the person ; 
he is but one person, yet very man as he is also very 
God. Think of this truth then, and say, " He who sits 
on the throne is such as I am, sin alone excepted." 

No, 'tis too much for speech, I will not speak of it ; 
it is a theme which masters me, and I fear to utter rash 
expressions. Turn the truth over and over, and see if it 
be not sweeter than honey and the honey-comb. 

Oh joy ! there sitteth in our flesh, 

Upon a throne of light, 
One of a human mother born, 

In perfect Godhead bright." 

Being with us in our nature, God was with us in all 
our life's pilgrimage. Scarcely can you find a halting 
place in the march of life at which Jesus has not paused, 
or a weary league which he has not traversed. From 
the gate of entrance even to the door which closes life's 
way, the foot prints of Jesus may be traced. 



320 JESUS. 

Were you in the cradle ? He was there. Were you 
a child under parental authority ? Christ was also a boy 
in the home at Nazareth. Have you entered upon life's 
battle ? Your Lord and Master did the same ; and though 
he lived not to old age, yet through incessant toil and 
suffering he bore the marred visage which attends a bat- 
tered old age. 

Are you alone ? So was he, in the wilderness, and 
on the mountain's side, and in the garden's gloom. Do 
you mix in public society ? So did he labor in the thick- 
est press. Where can you find yourself, on the hill top, 
or in the valley, on the land or on the sea, in daylight 
or in darkness, — where, I say, can you be without dis- 
covering that Jesus has been there before you ? 

What the world has said of her great poet we might 
with far more truth say of our Redeemer — 

' A man so various that he seemed to be 
Not one, but all mankind's epitome." 

One harmonious man he was, and yet all saintly lives 
seem to be condensed in his. Two believers may be very 
unlike each other, and yet both will find that Christ's 
life has in it points of likeness to their own. One shall 
be rich and another poor, one actively laborious and an- 
other patiently suffering, and yet each man in studying 
the history of the Savior shall be able to say — his path- 
way ran hard by my own. He was made in all points 
like unto his brethren. How charming is the fact that 
our Lord is "God with us," not here and there, and now 
and then, but evermore. 

Especially does this come out with sweetness in his 
being ' ' God with us " in our sorrows. There is no pang 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 321 

that rends the heart, I might almost say not one which 
disturbs the body, but what Jesus Christ has been with 
us in it all. 

Feel you the sorrows of poverty ? He ' * had not 
where to lay his head. " Do you endure the griefs of 
bereavement? Jesus "wept" at the tomb of Lazarus. 
Have you been slandered for righteousness' sake, and has 
it vexed your spirit ? He said, ' ' Reproach hath broken 
ine heart." 

Have you been betrayed ? Do not forget that he, 
too, had his familiar friend, who sold him for the price 
of a slave. On what stormy seas have you been tossed 
which have not also roared around his boat ? Never glen 
of adversity so dark, so deep, apparently so pathless, 
but what in stooping down you may discover the foot- 
prints of the Crucified One. In the fires and in the 
rivers, in the cold night and under the burning sun, he 
cries, " I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am both 
thy companion and thy God. " 

Mysteriously true is it that when you and I shall come 
to the last, the closing scene, we shall find that Em- 
manuel has been there. He felt the pangs and throes 
of death, he endured the bloody sweat of agony and the 
parching thirst of fever. He knew the separation of the 
tortured spirit from the poor, fainting flesh, and cried, as 
we shall, " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." 
Ay, and the grave he knew, for there he slept, and left 
the sepulchre perfumed and furnished to be a couch of 
rest, and not a charnel-house of corruption. 

That new tomb in the garden makes him God with 
us till the resurrection shall call us from our beds of clay 



322 JESUS. 



to find him God with us in newness of life. We shall 
be raised up in his likeness, and the first sight our open- 
ing eyes shall see shall be the incarnate God. 

"I know that my Redeemer liveth, and though after 
my skin worms devour this body, yet in my flesh shall I 
see God." 

" God with us." I, in my flesh, shall see him as the 
man, the God. And so to all eternity he will maintain 
the most intimate association with us. As long as ages 
roll he shall be "God with us." Has he not said, "Be- 
cause I live ye shall live also " ? Both his human and 
divine life will last on forever, and so shall our life en- 
dure. He shall dwell among us and lead us to living 
fountains of water, and so shall we be for ever with the 
Lord. 

And now, my brethren, to you the last word is, let 
us be with God, since God is with us. I give you, for a 
watchword through the year to come, ' ' Emmanuel, God 
with us." 

You, the saints redeemed by blood, have a right to 
all this in its fullest sense, drink into it and be filled 
with courage. Do not say, " We can do nothing." Who 
are ye that can do nothing? God is with you. Do not 
say, "The church is feeble and fallen upon evil times," 
— nay, " God is with us." 

We need the courage of those ancient soldiers who 
were wont to regard difficulties only as whetstones upon 
which to sharpen their swords. 

I like Alexander's talk — when they said there were so 
many thousands, so many millions, perhaps, of Persians. 
"Very well," said he, "it is good reaping where the 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 323 

corn is thick. One butcher is not afraid of a thousand 
sheep." 

I like even the talk of the old Gascon, who said 
when they asked him, ' ' Can you and your troops get 
into that fortress? it is impregnable." "Can the sun 
enter it ?" said he. " Yes." " Well, where the sun can 
go we can enter." 

Whatever is possible, or whatever is impossible, Chris- 
tians can do at God's command, for God is with us. Do 
you not see that the word, " God with us," puts impossi- 
bility out of all existence ? Hearts that never could else 
be broken will be broken if God be with us. Errors 
which never else could be confuted can be overthrown by 
"God with us." Things impossible with men are pos- 
sible with God. John Wesley died with that upon his 
tongue, and let us live with it upon our hearts. — "The 
best of all is, 'God with us.' Blessed Son of God, we 
thank thee that thou hast brought us that word." 

THE GRANDEUR OF HIS OFFICES. 

He is great also in the grandeur of his offices. Re- 
member that he has for our sakes undertaken to be our 
Redeemer. You see your bondage, brethren. You know 
it, for some of you have worn the fetters till they have 
entered into your soul : from such slavery he came to 
redeem us. Behold his Zion in ruins, heaps on heaps, 
smoking, consumed ! He comes to rebuild and to restore. 
This is his office — to build the old wastes, and to restore 
the temple of the living God, which had been cast 
down by the foe. To accomplish this he came to be our 



324 JESUS. 

Priest, our Prophet, and our King ; in each office glorious 
beyond compare. 

He came to be our Savior, our Sacrifice, our Substi- 
tute, our Surety, our Head, our Friend, our Lord, our 
Life, our All. Pile up the offices, and remember that 
each one is worthy of a God. Mention them as you 
may, and truly you shall never remember them all ; for 
he, the express image of his Father's glory, has under- 
taken every kind of office, that he might perfectly redeem 
his people, and make them to be his own forever. In 
each office he has gained the summit of glory, and there- 
in he is and shall be great. 

Have you ever stood in Westminster Abbey when 
some great warrior was being buried, and when the 
herald pronounced his various titles ? He has been 
greatly honored of his queen, and of the nation, for which 
he has fought so valiantly, and he is prince of this, and 
duke of that, and count of the other, and earl of some- 
thing else : and the titles are many and brilliant. 

What a parade it is ! "Vanity of vanities! All is 
vanity ! " What boots it to the senseless clay that it is 
buried with pomp of heraldry ? 

But I stood at the tomb of Christ, and I say of his 
offices that they are superlatively grand ; and, moreover, 
that they are not buried, neither is he among the dead. 
He lives and bears his honors still in the fullness of their 
splendor. He is all to his people still ; every office he 
still carries on, and will carry on till he shall deliver up 
the kingdom to God, even the Father, and God shall 
be all in all. 

Oh, the splendor of this Christ of God in the mighty 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON, 325 

offices whfch he sustains ! He is the Standard-bearer 
among ten thousand. Who is like unto him in all 
eternity ? ■ * The government shall be upon his shoulder: 
and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the 
Mighty God> the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." 
" Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is he that 
cometh in the name of the Lord ! " 

Let our hearts give him our adoring praise to-night, 
for he is great in the glorious offices which God has 
heaped upon him. 

His nature and his offices would alone furnish us with 
a lengthened theme ; but oh ! my brethren, the Lord 
Jesus is great in the splendor of his achievements. He 
does not wear an office whose duty is neglected ; but his 
name is faithful and true. He is no holder of a sinecure; 
he claims to have finished the work which his Father 
gave him to do. He has undertaken great things, and, 
glory be to his name, he has achieved them. His peo- 
ple's sins were laid upon him, and he bore them up to 
the cross, and on the cross he made an end of them, so 
that they will never be mentioned against them any more 
for ever. 

Then he went down into the grave, and slept there 
for a little season ; but he tore away the bars of the 
sepulchre and left death dead at his feet, bringing life 
and immortality to light by his resurrection. This was 
his high calling, and he has fulfilled it. His victory is 
complete, the defeat of the foe is perfect. 

4 ' O death, where is thy sting ? O grave, where is thy 
victory ? " 

Springing upward from the tomb when the appointed 



326 JESUS. 

days were come, he opened heaven's gates to all be- 
lievers, according to the word, — "The breaker is come 
up before them, and the king shall pass before them, and 
the Lord on the head of them." 

As he opened the gates, he led captivity captive; and 
receiving gifts for men, he cast down a royal largess 
among the poorest of his people that they might be en- 
riched thereby. This was his object, and the design has 
been carried out without flaw or failure. 

Within the vail he went, our Representative, to take 
possession of our crowns and thrones, which he holds for 
us to this day by the tenure of his own cross. 

Having purchased the inheritance, and paid off the 
heavy mortgage that lay upon it, he has taken possession 
of the Canaan wherein our souls shall dwell at the end of 
the days when we shall stand in our lot. 

Is it not proven that he is great ? Conquerors are 
great, and he is the greatest of them. Deliverers are great, 
and he is the greatest of them. Liberators are great, and 
he is the greatest of them. Saviors are great, and he is 
the greatest of them. They that multiply the joys of 
men are truly great, and what shall I say of him who has 
bestowed everlasting joy upon his people, and entailed it 
upon them by a covenant of salt for ever and ever ? Well 
didst thou say, O Gabriel, '-He shall be great," for great 
indeed he is ! 

THE NUMBER OF THE SAVED. 

My theme will never be exhausted, though I may be. 
Let me not delay to add that our Lord Jesus Christ is 
great in the number of his saved ones. I do not believe 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 327 

-— — — r— ■ — \ 

in a little Christ, or a little heaven, or a little compa»2j 
before the throne, or a few that shall be saved. 

Hear you this, for I would fain reply to a lie that ia 
often stated, and is the last resort of those who assail 
the doctrines of grace. They say that we helieve tha* 
God has left the great mass of his creatures to perish, 
and has arbitrarily chosen an elect few. 

We have never thought such a thing. We believe 
that the Lord has an elect many; and it is our joy ano 
delight to think of them as a number that no man car. 
number. 

"Oh," they say, "you think that the few who go to 
your little Bethel or Salem are the elect of God. " 

That, sirs, is what you invent for your own purposes, 
but we have never said anything of this sort. We rejoice 
to believe that as many as the stars of heaven shall the 
redeemed of Christ be — that as many as the sands that 
are upon the sea-shore, even an innnmerable company, 
are those for whom Christ has shed his precious blood 
that he might effectually redeem them. 

As I look up to the heaven of the sanctified, my 
mind's eye does not see a few dozen saints met together 
in select circles of exclusiveness ; but my eyes are dazzled 
with the countless lights which shine each one from the 
lustrous brows of the redeemed ; lustrous, I say, for each 
glorified one wears upon his forehead the name of the 
Most Hight. 

My heart is glad to turn away from the multitude that 
throng the broad way, and to see a greater multitude 
that tbrong the heavenly fields, and, day without night, 
celebrate redemption by the blood of the Lamb. Have 



328 JESUS. 

they not washed their robes, and made them white in His 
blood ? In all things our Lord will have the pre-emin- 
ence, and this shall be the case in the number of His 
followers : He shall therein vanquish His great enemy. 
His redeemed shall fly as a cloud, and as doves to their 
windows. Countless as the drops of morning dew shall 
His people be in the day of His power. He shall be great 
in the host of His adherents in glory. 

Multitudes upon earth are even now pursuing their 
road to heaven, and greater hosts are yet to follow them. 
A day shall be when the people of God shall be increased 
exceedingly, above anything that we see at this present ; 
they shall spring up as the grass and as willows by the 
water-courses, as if every stone that heard the ripple of 
the brook had been turned iuto a man. The seed of the 
Lord Jesus Christ shall multiply till arithmetic shall be 
utterly baffled, and numeration shall fail. 

He is great — a great Savior of a great mass of great 
sinners, who shall by His redeeming arm be brought 
safely, without fail, to His right hand in the endless glory. 
As the tribes of the natural Israel increased exceedingly, 
so also shall the spiritual Israel. The Lord shall multiply 
His Zion with men as with a flock, and thus shall the 
King of Israel be great. 

JESUS AND HEAVEN. 

And now, dear friends, you and I, being greatly par- 
doned through the great sacrifice, are journeying through 
the wilderness toward Canaan, and we have great wants 
and many, pressing upon us every day. We are poverty 
itself, and only All-sufficiency can supply us ; but that is 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 329 

found in Jesus. We need great abundance of food : the 
heavenly bread lies around about the camp, and each 
may fill his omer. We require rivers of living water : the 
smitten rock yields us a ceaseless flood ; the out-flow 
never ceases. We have great demands, but Christ has 
great supplies. 

Between here and Heaven we shall have, perhaps, 
greater wants than we have yet known ; but, all along, 
every halting-place is ready, provender is laid up, good 
cheer is stored, nothing has been overlooked. The com- 
missariat of the Eternal is absolutely perfect. 

Do you feel sometimes so thirsty for grace that, like 
Behemorh, you could drink up Jordan at a draught ? 
more than that river could hold is given you. 

Drink abundantly, for Christ has prepared you a bot- 
tomless sea of grace to fill you with all the fullness of 
God. Stint not yourselves, and doubt not your Savior : 
wherefore should you limit the Holy One of Israel ? Be 
great in your experience of His All-sufficiency, and great 
in your praise of His bounty, and then in Heaven you 
shall pour at His feet great treasures of gratitude for ever 
and ever. 

OPPORTUNE. 

This great transaction was accomplished at the right 
time: "When the fulness of the time was come, God 
sent forth His Son, made of a woman." 

The reservoir of time had to be filled by the inflow- 
ing of age after age, and when it was full to the brim 
the Son of God appeared. 

Why the world should have remained in darkness for 
four thousand years, why it should have taken that length 



330 JESUS. 

of time for the church to attain her full age, we cannot 
tell ; but this we are told, that Jesus was sent forth when 
the fulness of time was come. Our Lord did not come 
before His time nor behind His time : He was punctual 
to His hour, and cried to the moment : "Lo, I come." 

We may not curiously pry into the reasons why Christ 
came when He did ; but we may reverently muse thereon. 

The birth of Jesus is the grandest light of history, the 
sun in the heavens of all time. It is the polar-star of hu- 
man destiny, the hinge of chronology, the meeting-place 
of the waters of the past and the future. Why happened 
it just at that moment ? Assuredly it was so predicted. 
There were prophecies many which pointed exactly to 
that hour. 

I will not detain you just now with them ; but those 
of you who are familiar with the Old Testament Scrip- 
tures well know that, as with so many fingers, they 
pointed to the time when the Shiloh should come, and 
the great sacrifice should be offered. 

He came at the hour which God had determined. 
The infinite Lord appoints the hour of every event ; all 
times are in His hand. There are no loose threads in 
the providence of God, no stitches are dropped, no events 
are left to chance. The great clock of the universe 
keeps good time, and the whole machinery of providence 
moves with unerring punctuality. It was to be expected 
that the greatest of all events should be most accurately 
and wisely timed, and so it was. 

God willed it to be when and where it was, and that 
will is to us the ultimate reason. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 331 

JESUS APPROACHABLE. 

The most depraved and despised classes of society 
formed an inner ring of hearers around our Lord. I 
gather from this that he was a most approachable per- 
son, that he was not of repulsive manners, but that he 
courted human confidence and was willing that men 
should commune with him. 

Upon that one thought I shall enlarge, this evening, 
and may the Holy Spirit make it a loadstone to draw 
many hearts to Jesus. Eastern monarchs affected great 
seclusion, and were wont to surround themselves with 
impassable barriers of state. It was very difficult for 
even their most loyal subjects to approach them. 

You remember the case of Esther, who, though the 
monarch was her husband, yet went with her life in her 
hand when she ventured to present herself before the 
king, Ahasnerus, for there was a commandment that 
none should come unto the king except they were called, 
at peril of their lives. 

It is not so with the King of kings. His court is far 
more splendid ; his person is far more worshipful ; but 
you may draw near to him at all times without let or 
hindrance. He has set no men-at-arms around his 
palace gate. The door of his house of mercy is set wide 
open. Over the lintel of his palace gate is written, " For 
every one that asketh receiveth ; and he that seeketh 
findeth ; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened." 

Even in our own days great men are not readily to be 
come at. There are so many back stairs to be climbed 
before you can reach the official who might have helped 
you, so many subalterns to be parleyed with, and 



332 JESUS. 

servants to be passed by, that there is no coming at 
your object. 

The good men may be affable enough themselves, but 
they remind us of the old Russian fable of the hospit- 
able householder in a village, who was willing enough to 
help all the poor who came to his door, but he kept so 
many big dogs loose in his yard that nobody was able to 
get up to the door, and therefore his personal affability 
was of no service 1o the wanderers. 

It is not so with our Master. Though he is greater 
than the greatest, and higher than the highest, he has 
been pleased to put out of the way everything which 
might keep the sinner from entering into his halls of 
gracious entertainment. From his lips we hear no 
threatenings against intrusion, but hundreds of invita- 
tions to the nearest and dearest intimacy. Jesus is to 
be approached, not now and then, but at all times, and 
not by some favored few, but by all in whose hearts His 
Holy Spririt has enkindled the desire to enter into his 
secret presence. 

The philosophical teachers of our Lord's day affected 
very great seclusion. They considered their teachings to 
be so profound and electic that they were not to be uttered 
in the hearing of the common multitude. ' ' Far hence, ye 
profane," was their scornful motto. Like Simon Stylites, 
they stood upon a lofty pillar of their fancied self-con- 
ceit, and dropped down now and then a stray thought 
upon the vulgar herd beneath, but they did not conde- 
scend to talk familiarly with them, considering it to be a 
dishonor to their philosophy to communicate it to the 
multitude. 




The Good Shepherd. — trom the Painting by Plockhurst. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 333 

One of the greatest philosophers wrote over his door, 
w Let no one who is ignorant of geometry enter here ;" 
but our Lord, compared with whom all the wise men are 
but fools, who is, in fact, the wisdom of God, never 
drove away a sinner because of his ignorance, never re- 
fused a seeker because he was not yet initiated, and had 
not taken the previous steps in the ladder of learning, 
and never permitted any thirsty spirit to be chased away 
from the crystal spring of truth divine. His every word 
was a diamond, and his lips dropped pearls, but he was 
never more at home than when speaking to the common 
herd, and teaching them concerning the kingdom of 
God. 

You may thus contrast and compare our Lord's gen- 
tle manners with those of kings, and nobles, and sages, 
but you will find none to equal him in condescending 
tenderness. To this attractive quality of our Lord, I 
intend, this evening, as God shall help me, to ask your 
earnest attention. First, let us prove it ; secondly, illus- 
trate it ; and, thirdly, enforce or improve it. 

First, let us prove the approachableness of Christ, 
though it really needs no proof, for it is a fact which lies 
upon the surface of his life. 

I. You may see it conspicuously in his offices. Those 
offices are too many for us to take them all to-night. We 
will just cull a handful ; say three. Our Lord Jesus is 
said to be the Mediator between God and man. 

Now, observe, that the office of mediator implies at 
once that he should be approachable. A daysman, as 
Job says, is one who can put his hand upon both ; but if 
Jtsus will not familiarly put his hand on man, certainly 



334 JESUS. 



he is no daysman between God and man. A mediator 
is not a mediator of one — he must be akin to both the 
parties between whom he mediates. If Jesus Christ 
shall be a perfect mediator between God and man, he 
must be able to come to God so near that God shall call 
him his fellow, and then he must approach to man so 
closely that he shall not be ashamed to call him brother. 
This is precisely the case with our Lord. Do not think 
of this, you who are afraid of Jesus. He is a mediator, 
and as a mediator you may come to him. 

Jacob's ladder reached from earth to heaven, but if 
you had cut away half-a-dozen of the bottom rounds, 
what would have been the good of it ? Who could ascend 
by it into the hill of the Lord ? Jesus Christ is the great 
conjunction between earth and heaven, but if he will not 
touch the poor mortal man who comes to him, why then, 
of what service is he to the sons of men ? 

You do need a mediator between your soul and 
God ; you must not think of coming to God without a 
mediator ; but you do not need a mediator between your- 
selves and Christ. There is a preparation for coming to 
God — you must not come to God without a perfect 
righteousness ; but you may come to Jesus without any 
preparation, and without any righteousness, because as 
mediator he has in himself all the righteousness and 
fitness that you require, and is ready to bestow them upon 
you. You may come bodily to him even now ; he waits 
to reconcile you unto God by his blood. 

Another of his offices is that of priest. That word 
"priest" has come to smell very badly nowadays ; but, 
for all that, it is a very sweet word as we find it in Holy 



BIBLE CHARACTERS.— C. H. SPURGEON. 335 

Scripture. The word * ' priest " does not mean a gaudily- 
dressed pretender, who stands apart from other worship- 
pers within the gate, two steps higher than the rest of 
the people, who professes to have power to dispense 
pardon for human sin, and I know not what beside. The 
true priest was truly the brother of all the people. There 
was no man in all the camp so brotherly as Aaron. So 
much were Aaron and the priests who succeeded him the 
first points of contact with men, on God's behalf, that 
when a leper had become too unclean for anybody else to 
draw near to him, the last man who touched him was 
the priest. The house might be leprous, but the priest 
went into it, and the man might be leprous, but he talked 
with him, and examined him, the last of Israel's tribes 
who might be familiar with the wretched outcast ; and 
if afterwards that deceased man was cured, the first per- 
son who touched him must be a priest. "Go, show thy 
self to the priest," was the command, to every recover- 
ing leper ; and until the priest had entered into fellowship 
with him, and had given him a certificate of health, he 
could not be received into the Jewish camp. 

The priest was the true brother of the people, chosen 
from among themselves, at all times to be approached ; 
living iu their midst, in the very center of the camp, 
ready to make intercession for the sinful and the sorrow- 
ful. So it is with our Lord. 

I read just now, in your hearing, that he can be 
touched with a feeling of our infirmities, and that he was 
tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. 
Surely, you will never doubt that if Jesus perfectly sus- 
tains the office of priest, as he certainly does, he must be 



336 JESUS. 

the most approachable of beings, approachable by the 
poor sinner, who has given himself up to despair, whom 
only a sacrifice can save ; approachable by the foul harlot 
who is put outside the camp, whom only the blood can 
cleanse ; approachable by the miserable thief who has to 
suffer the punishment of his crimes, whom only the great 
High Priest can absolve. 

No other man may care to touch you, O trembling 
outcast, but Jesus will. You may be separated from all 
of human kind, justly and righteously, by your iniquities, 
but you are not separated from that great Friend of sin- 
ners who at this very time is willing that publicans and 
sinners should draw near unto him. 

As a third office, let me mention that the Lord Jesus 
is our Savior ; but I see not how he can be a Savior unless 
he can be approached by those who need to be saved. 
The priest and the Levite passed by on the other side 
when the bleeding man lay in the road to Jericho ; they 
were not saviors, therefore, and could not be, but he was 
the savior who came where the man was, stooped over 
him, and took wine and oil and poured them into the 
gaping fissures of his wounds, and lifted him up with 
tender love and set him on his own beast, and led him to 
the inn. 

He was the true savior : and, O sinner, Jesus Christ 
will come just where you are, and your wounds of sin, 
even though they are putrid, shall not drive him away 
from you. His love shall overcome the nauseating offen- 
siveness of your iniquity, for he is able and willing to 
save such as you are. I might mention many other of 
the offices of Christ, but these three will suffice. Cer- 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 337 

tainly if the Spirit blesses them, you will be led to see 
that Jesus is not hard to reach. 

2. Consider a few of his names and titles. Frequently 
Jesus is called the i( Lamb." Blessed name ! I do not 
suppose there is any one here who was ever afraid of a 
lamb ; that little girl yonder, if she saw a lamb, would 
not be frightened. Every child seems almost instinctively 
to long to put its hand on the head of a lamb. O that 
you might come and put your hand on the head of Christ, 
the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. 

" Oh see how Jesus trusts himself 
Unto our childish love, 
As though by his free ways with us 
Our earnestness to prove. 

His sacred name a common word 

On earth he loves to hear ; 
There is no majesty in him 

Which love may not come near." 

Again you find him called a Shepherd ; no one is 
afraid of a shepherd. If you were traveling in the East, 
and you saw Bedouins or Turkish soldiery in the distance, 
you might be alarmed ; but if some one said, ' ' Oh, it is 
only a few shepherds," you would not he afraid of them. 
The sheep are not at all timid when near the shepherd. 
O poor, wandering sheep, you, perhaps, have come to be 
afraid of Christ, but there is no reason why you should 
be, for this heavenly Shepherd says, " I will seek out my 
sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they 
have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. " 

' ' See Israel's gentle Shepherd stands 
With all engaging charms." 

Timid, foolish, and wandering though you may be. 



338 JESUS. 

there is nothing in the good Shepherd to drive you away 
from him, but everything to entice you to come to him. 
Then, again, he is called our Brother, and one always 
feels that he may approach his brothet. I have no 
thought of trouble or distress which I would hesitate to 
communicate to my brother here, for he is so good and 
kind. I do not think I could be in any trouble which I 
should not expect him to do his best to help me out of. 
I never feel that there is any distance between him and 
me, nor do you, I hope, feel so with regard to your 
brothers. Even so, is it with this Brother born for ad- 
versity. Believer, how is it that you are sometimes so 
backward and so cold toward Jesus ? 

Christ is approachable. 

" The light of love is round his feet, 
His paths are never dim ; 
And he comes nigh to us when we 
Dare not come nigh to him." 

You need not think that your troubles are too trifling 
to bring to him ; he has an open ear for the little daily 
vexations of life. Brethren, you can come to the good 
elder Brother at all hours ; and when he blames you for 
coming, let me know. 

He is called, too, a Friend ; but he would be a very 
unfriendly friend who could not be approached by those 
he professed to love. If my friend puts a hedge around 
himself, and holds himself so very dignified that I may 
not speak with him, I would rather be without his friend- 
ship ; but if he be a genuine friend, and I stand at his 
door knocking, he will say, "Come in, and wdlc&roe ; 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 339 

what can I do for you ?" Such a friend is Jesus Christ. 
He is to be met with by all needy, seeking hearts. 

3. There is room enough for enlargement here, but I 
have no time to say more, therefore I will give you an- 
other plea. Recollect his person. The person of our 
Lord Jesus Christ proclaims this truth with a trumpet 
voice. I say his person, because he is man, born of 
woman, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. The 
Lord Jesus Christ is God, but if he were God only, you 
might well stand at a distance, and shudder at the 
splendor of his majesty. But he is man as well as God, 
and so it comes to pass, as Dr. Watts puts it — 

" 'Till God in human flesh I see, 
My thoughts no comfort find ; 
The holy, just, and sacred Three 
Are terrors to mo mind. 

But if Immanuel's face appear, 

My hope, my joy begins ; 
Bis name forbids my slavish fear, 

His grace removes my sins," 

When I see Christ in the manger where the horned 
ox fed, or hanging on a woman's breast, or obedient to 
his parents, or ' ' a Man of sorrows and acquainted with 
grief," a poor man without a place whereon to lay his 
head, then I feel that I can freely come to him. Think 
of him as being precisely such as you are, in all and 
everything except sin, and then you will never have a 
thought that he will chide you for drawing near, or drive 
you away when you venture to supplicate him. 

But I want especially to say to you that if you could 
but see my Master's person as he was when he was on 



340 JESUS. 

earth, you would have henceforth and for ever the thought 
that you might not come to him expelled from your 
mind. 

I know not what may have been his beauties, or what 
may have been the appearance of his lovely countenance, 
but of this I am persuaded, that if he could but come 
here to-night, and I could vacate this platform for him 
whose shoe-latchet I am not worthy to unloose, you 
who groan under a sense of unworthiness would not run 
away. 

If Moses stood here with his flaming countenance, 
you would shade your eyes, and ask that if you must look 
upon him he might wear a veil ; but if Christ were born, 
oh ! how you longing, seeking ones would gaze upon 
him ! There would be no drooping of the eyelids, no 
covering of the face, no alarm, no anguish — his face is 
too sweet for that. 

And if the Master should walk down the aisles, the 
most timid of you would long to touch the hem of his 
garment and kiss the floor whereon he had set his feet. 
I know you would not fear to look into that face. 

And then that voice, how would you be charmed, you 
poor, trembling seekers, if you heard him say, "Take 
my yoke upon you, and learn of me ;" you would dis- 
cover such meekness and lowliness in him, that you 
would not think ot starting back. 

Oh ! if your eyes could but see him, I feel persuaded 
that, graciously drawn by his charms, your hearts would 
hasten to him. 

Well, believer, come to him, come to him ; come 
close to him. Come with your troubles and tell him all 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 341 

about them. Come with your sins and ask to have them 
washed away anew. 

"Let us be simple with him, then, 
Not backward, stiff, or cold, 
As though our Bethlehem could be 
What Sina was of old." 

And you, poor, trembling sinner, come to him ; come 
to him now, for he has said, " Him that cometh to me 
I will in no wise cast out." Oh ! if your eyes were 
opened to behold him, you would perceive that the glory 
of his person lies not in the splendor which repels, but 
in the majesty which divinely attracts. 

4. If this suffice not, let me here remind you of the 
language of Christ. He proclaims his approachability 
in such words as these, (i Come unto me, all ye that 
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." 

Ye horny-handed sons of toil, ye smiths and carpen- 
ters, ye plumbers and diggers, come unto me, yea, come 
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give 
you rest. And again, " If any man thirst, let him come 
unto me and drink." 

He invites men to come ; he pleads with them to 
come ; and when they will not come he gently upbraids 
them with such words as these, " Ye will not come unto 
me, that ye might have life." And, agaiu, "O Jerusa- 
lem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and 
stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would 
I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen 
gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would 
not." It is not " /would not," but "ye would not." 

Why, the whole of Scripture, in its invitations, may 



342 JESUS. 

be said to be the language of Christ, and therein you find 
loving, pleading words of this kind, * ' Come, now, and 
let us reason together : though your sins be as scarlet, 
they shall be as white as snow ; though they be red like 
crimson, they shall be as wool." ''Let the wicked 
forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts : 
and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have 
mercy upon him ; and to our god, for he will abundantly 
pardon." 

All our blessed Lord's sermons were so many loving 
calls to poor, aching hearts to come and find what they 
needed in him. I pray that the Holy Spirit may give an 
effectual call to many of you to-night. It would gladden 
the heart of the Redeemer in the skies if you would come 
to him for salvation, for you may come, since there is no 
barrier between you and the Savior of men. What is 
it keeps you back ? I repeat it with tears, what is it 
keeps you back ? 

The old proverb truly says that < * actions speak 
louder than words," and, therefore, let us review the 
general ways and manners of the Redeemer. You may 
gather that he is the most approachable of persons from 
the actions of his life. He was always very busy, and 
busy about the most important of matters, and yet he 
never shut the door in the faee of any applicant. 

Her Majesty's cabinet have to discuss most important 
political matters just now, but compared with the work 
which filled the Savior's hands and heart, their discus- 
sions are mere trifles. Our master might well have 
claimed seclusion, but he did not. He sought it, but he 
(ound none, save only at midnight, when be watched 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGBON. 343 

and prayed. No sort of appeal for audience did Jesus 
frown upon. 

There were certain mothers in the land, poor simple- 
minded women, and they took it into their heads one 
day that they would like to have the Master's hands put 
upon the heads of their little ones. So they came, 
bringing their boys and girls, but some of the disciples 
said, "The Master must not be disturbed by children ; 
go ye your ways, and take your children back." But 
what said he ? How different from his followers ! he re- 
buked their harshness, and said : ' ' Suffer little children 
to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." 

You see he is a child's friend. Dear young people, 
think of that. Jesus does not drive you away, but 
though he is so great and glorious that all the angels 
of God worship him, yet he stoops to hear the prayers 
and praises of little children. Seek him now, for those 
who seek him early shall find him. 

Let me tell you another story. There was a woman 
iu the city who was a sinner. You know the meaning, 
the dark, sad meaning of that title in her case ; I need 
not explain that. Poor soul ! Her sin had caused her 
to be despised and shunned by everyone, but she had 
been forgiven, and in gratitude she poured the precious 
ointment on her beloved Savior's feet, and then wiped 
tbem with the hairs of her head ; and when the Pharisee 
Simon would have had her rebuked, the loving Master 
said, ' ' She loves much because she has had much for- 
given." 

He is approachable by all, then, even by the worst ; 
even the harlot need not fear to draw near to him — his 



344 JESUS. 



touch can make her pure. I have noted one thing in 
Christ's life, and noted it with delight. Our Lord was 
always preaching, and he often grew weary, as we do, 
and therefore he wanted a little retirement, but the mul- 
titude came breaking in upou his solitude, following him 
on foot when he had sailed away to escape them , this 
was troublesome, and to us it would have been irritating, 
yet he never uttered an angry, fretful syllable. There 
was no rest for him, because of the eager crowd ; but 
did he ever say, " How those people tease me ; how they 
worry me " ? No, never ; his big heart made him forget 
himself. He was approachable to all at all hours; even 
his meals were disturbed, but he was gentJe toward those 
thoughtless intruders. Not once was he harsh and re- 
pulsive. His whole life proves the truth of the prophecy, 
1 4 The bruised reed he will not break, and the smoking 
flax he will not quench." He graciously recaives the 
weak and the feeble ones who come to him, and sends 
none empty away. 

5. But, if you want the crowning argument, look 
yonder. The man who has lived a life of service, at last 
dies a felon's death ! Look upon his head girt with the 
crown of thorns ! Mark well his cheeks whence they 
have plucked off the hair ! See the spittle from those 
scornful mouths, staining his marred countenance ! Mark 
the crimson rivers which are flowing from his back where 
they have scourged him ! See his hands and his feet, 
which are pierced with the nails, and from which en- 
sanguined rills are flowing ! Look to that face so full of 
anguish, listen to his cry, * ' I thirst, I thirst ; " and as 
you see him there expiring, can you think that he will 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 345 

spurn the seeker ? As you see him turn his head and say 
to the dying thief by his side, " To-day shalt thou be 
with me in paradise, " you dare not belie him so much as 
to deem that you may not come to him. You will out- 
rage your reason if you start back from Jesus crucified. 
The cross of Christ should be the center to which all 
hearts are drawn, the focus of desire, the pivot of hope, 
the anchorage of faith. You may come, sinner, black, 
vile, hellish sinner, you may come and have life even as 
the dying thief had it when he said, "Lord, remember 
me." 

•• There is life in a look at the crucified One." 

Surely, you need not be afraid to come to him who 
went to Calvary foj sinners. Why linger ? Why hesi- 
tate ? Why those blushes, sobs, and tears ? 

" Why art thou afraid to come, 
And tell him all thy case ? 
He will not pronounce thy doom, 
Nor frown thee from his face. 

Wilt thou fear Immanuel? 

Or dread the Lamb of God, 
Who, to save thy soul from hell, 

Has shed his precious blood ? " 

Did I hear a whisper, did anybody say that Christ is 
now in heaven and that he may have changed ? Ah, 
groundless insinuation ! Do you know what he is doing 
in heaven at this moment ? He is exalted on high to 
give repentance and remission of sins. What a help 
that is to those who are coming to him ! This repent- 
ance is the greatest want of coming sinners, and he from 
the skies supplies it. 

Moreover, 4 ' he ever liveth to make intercession for 



346 JESUS. 

us." His occupation in the skies is to plead for those 
sinners whom he redeemed with his blood, and hence he 
is able to save them unto the uttermost. Since he is the 
intercessor for souls, there is no reason why you should 
start back, but every reason why you should boldly come 
to the throne of the heavenly grace, because you have a 
High Priest who is passed into the heavens. 

" Compell'd by bleeding love, 

Ye wandering sheep draw near ; 

Christ calls you from above — 

His charming accents hear ! 
Let whosoever will now come, 
In mercy's breast there still is room." 

Here I leave this part of the subject. Some of you 
little know how heavily this sermon is hanging on my 
mind. I preach my very soul to you this day. I wish 
I knew how to preach so as to win some of you for my 
Lord, this evening ; I should be glad to go even to the 
school of affliction if I might learn to preach more suc- 
cessfully. But I can do no more. 

May the Eternal Spirit, in answer to the prayers of 
his people, which I hope are going up now, be pleased 
to make you feel the sweet attractions of the Cross of 
Christ, and may you come to him, so that it may be said 
again to-night, ''Then draw near unto him, publicans 
and sinners." 

The Pharisees and scribes formed the outside ring of 
Christ's hearers, but the inner circle consisted of the 
guilty, the heavy-laden and the lowly. They pressed as 
near to Christ as they could, that they might catch his 
every word; and besides there was an attractiveness about 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 347 

his manner that drew them toward him. His mercy at» 
tracted their misery. They wanted him, and he desired 
them ; they were thus well met. There will be an inner 
circle to-night when the gospel is preached, and it will 
not consist of the self-righteous. They that are full will 
not press to the table on which the gospel feast is spread, 
the hungry will be found nearest to the heavenly pro- 
vision. 

JESUS SEEKING LOST MAN. 

Our Lord Jesus Christ, while he was here below, was 
continually in the pursuit of lost souls. He was seeking 
lost men and women, and it was for this reason that he 
went down among them, even among those who were 
most evidently lost, that be might find them. He took 
pains to put himself where he could come into communi- 
cation with them, and he exhibited such kindliness to- 
wards them that in crowds they drew near to hear him. 
I dare say it was a queer-looking assembly, a disreput- 
able rabble, which made the Lord Jesus its center. I 
am not astonished that the Pharisee, when he looked 
upon the congregation, sneered and said, " He collects 
around him the pariahs of our community, the wretches 
who collect taxes for the foreigner of God's free people ; 
and the fallen women of the towns, and such-like riffraff 
make up his audiences ; and he, instead of repelling 
them, receives them, welcomes them, looks upon them 
as a class to whom he has a peculiar relationship. He 
even eats with them. 

Did he not go into the house of Zaccheus, and the 
house of Levi, and partake of the feasts which these 
low people made for him?" 



348 JESUS. 

We cannot tell you all the Pharisees thought, it might 
not be edifying to attempt it ; but they thought as badly 
of the Lord as they possibly could, because of the com^ 
pany which surrounded him. 

And so, he designs in this parable to defend himself ; 
not that he cared much about what they might think, but 
that they might have no excuse for speaking so bitterly 
of him. He tells them that he was seeking the host, 
and where should he be found but among those whom he 
was seeking ? 

Should a physician shun the sick ? Should a shep- 
herd avoid the lost sheep ? Was he not exactly in his 
right position when there "drew near unto him all the 
publicans and sinners for to hear him"? 

Our divine Lord defended himself by what is called 
an argumentum ad hominem,, an argument to the men 
themselves ; for he said, "What man of you, having an 
hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, does not go after 
that which is lost, until he find it ?" 

No argument tells more powerfully upon men than 
one which comes close home to their own daily life, and 
the Savior put it so. They were silenced, if they were 
not convinced. It was a peculiarly strong argument, be- 
cause in their case it was only a sheep that they would 
go after, but in his case it was something infinitely more 
precious than all the flocks of sheep that ever fed on 
Sharon or Carmel ; for it was the soul of man he sought 
to save. 

The argument had in it not only the point of peculiar 
adaptation, but a force at the back of it unusually pow- 
erful for driving it home upon every honest mind. It 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. E. SPURGEON. 349 

maybe opened out in this fashion : " If you men would 
each of you go after a lost sheep, and follow in its track 
until you found it, how much more may I go after lost 
souls, and follow them in all their wanderings until I can 
rescue them ? " 

The going after the sheep is a part of the parable 
our Lord meant them to observe ; the shepherd pursues 
a route he would never think of pursuing if it were only 
for his own pleasure ; his way is not selected for his own 
ends, but for the sake of the stray sheep. 

He takes a track up hill and down dale, far into a 
desert, or into some dark wood, simply because the sheep 
has gone that way, and he must follow it until found. 

Our Lord Jesus Christ, as a matter of taste and 
pleasure, would never have been found among the pub- 
licans and sinners, nor among any of our guilty race : if 
he had consulted his own ease and comfort he would have 
consorted only with pure and holy angels, and the great 
Father above ; but he was not thinking of himself, his 
heart was Sjt upon the lost ones, and therefore he went 
where the lost sheep were ; " for the Son of man is come 
to seek and to save that which was lost." 

The more steadily you look at this parable the more 
clearly you will see that our Lord's answer was complete. 
We need not regard it exclusively as an answer to Phari- 
sees, but we may look at it as an instruction to ourselves ; 
for it is quite as complete in that direction. May the 
good Spirit instruct us as we muse upon it. 

JESUS ABLE TO SAVE. 

But, now, consider a second matter which may set 



360 JESUS. 



this more clearly before us. Think of the Son of God, 
who is indeed the true bread of life for sinners. 

Sinner, I return to my personal address. Thou needest 
a Savior ; and thou mayest well be encouraged when thou 
seest that a Savior is provided — provided by God, since 
it is certain he would not make a mistake in the pro- 
vision. But consider who the Savior is. He is himself 
God. Jesus, who came from heaven for our redemption, 
was not an angel, else might we tremble to trust the 
weight of our sin upon him. He was not mere man, or 
he could but have suffered as a substitute for one, if in- 
deed for one ; but he was very God of very God, in the 
beginning with the Father. 

And does such a one come to redeem ? Is there room 
to doubt as to his ability, if that be the fact ? I do con- 
fess this day, that if my sins were ten thousand times 
heavier than they are, yea, and if I had all the sins 
of this crowd in addition piled upon me, I could trust 
Jesus with them all at this moment, now I know him to 
be the Christ of God. He is the mighty God, and by 
his pierced hand the burden of our sin is easily removed j 
he blots out our sins, he casts them into the depths of 
the sea. 

But, ah ! the master proof that in Christ Jesus there 
is " bread enough and to spare," is the cross. Will you 
follow me a moment, will you follow him, rather, to 
Gethsemane ? Can you see the bloody sweat as it falls 
upon the ground in his agony ? Can you think of his 
scourging before Herod and Pilate ? Can you trace him 
along the Via Dolorosa of Jerusalem ? Will your tender 
hearts endure to see him nailed to the tree, and lifted up 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 351 

to bleed and die ? This is but the shell ; as for the in- 
ward kernel of his sufferings, no language can describe it, 
neither can conception peer into it. The everlasting 
God laid sin on Christ, and where the sin was laid there 
fell the wrath. " It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he 
has put him to grief," 

Now. he that died upon the cross was God's only be- 
gotten Son. Can you conceive a limit to the merit of 
such a Savior's death ? I know there are some who think 
it necessary to their system of theology to limit the merit 
of the blood of Jesus : if my system of theology needed 
such a limitation, I would cast it to the winds. I cannot, 
dare not, allow the thought to find a lodging in my mind ; 
it seems so near akin to blasphemy. 

In Christ's finished work I see an ocean of merit ; my 
plummet finds no bottom, my eye discovers no shore. 
There must be sufficient efficacy in the blood of Christ, 
if God had so willed it, to have saved not only all this 
world, but ten thousand worlds, had they transgressed 
the Maker's law. 

Once admit infinity into the matter, and limit is out 
of the question. Having a divine person for an offering, 
it is not consistent to conceive of limited value ; bound 
and measure are terms inapplicable to the divine sacrifice. 
The intent of the divine purpose fixes the application of 
the infinite offering, but does not change it into a finite 
work. In the atonement of Christ Jesus there is ' ' bread 
enough and to spare ; " even as Paul wrote to Timothy, 
"He is the Savior of all men, specially of those that 
believe. " 

But now, let me lead you to another point of solemnly 



352 JESUS. 

joyful consideration, and that is the Holy Spirit. To 
believe and love the Trinity is to possess the key of 
theology. We spoke of the Father, we spoke of the 
Son ; let us now speak of the Holy Spirit. 

We do him all too little honor, for the Holy Trinity 
condescends to come to earth and dwell in our hearts ; 
and notwithstanding all our provocations he still abides 
within his people. Now, sinner, thou needest a new life 
and thou needest holiness, for both of these are neces- 
sary to make thee fit for heaven. Is there a provision 
for this ? The Holy Spirit is provided and given in the 
covenant of grace ; and surely in Him there is ' ' enough 
and to spare." 

What cannot the Holy Spirit do ? Being divine, 
nothing can be beyond His power. Look at what He has 
already done. He moved upon the face of chaos, and 
brought it into order ; all the beauty of creation arose 
beneath His moulding breath. 

We ourselves must confess with Elihu, "The Spirit 
of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty 
hath given me life." 

Think of the great deeds of the Holy Spirit at Pente- 
cost, when men unlearned spake with tongues of which 
they knew not a syllable aforetime, and the flames of 
fire upon them were also within them, so that their hearts 
burned with zeal and courage, to which they had hitherto 
been strangers. 

Think of the Holy Spirit's work on such a one as Saul 
of Tarsus. That persecutor foams blood, he is a very 
wolf, he would devour the saints of God at Damascus, 
and yet, within a very few moments, you hear him say, 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 353 

"Who art thou, Lord?" and yet again, "Lord, what 
wilt thou have me to do ? " His heart is changed ; the 
Spirit of God has new created it ; the adamant is melted 
in a moment into wax. 

Many of us stand before you as the living monuments 
of what the Holy Ghost can do, and we can assure you 
from our own experience, that there is no inward evil 
which cannot be overcome, no lustful desire of the flesh 
which He cannot subdue, no obduracy of the affections 
He cannot melt. 

Is anything too hard for the Lord ? Is the Spirit of 
the Lord straitened ? Surely, no sinner can be beyond 
the possibility of mercy when the Holy Spirit conde- 
scends to be the agent of human conversion. 

O sinner, if thou perish, it is not because the Holy 
Spirit wants power, or the blood of Jesus lacks efficacy, 
or the Father fails in love ; it is because thou believest 
not in Christ, but dost abide in willful rebellion, refusing 
the abundant bread of life which is placed before thee. 



JOB. 

Job's dire distress was aggravated by the remarks of 
his friends. Eliphaz, the Temanite, opened fire against 
him in such words as these : " Behold, thou hast in- 
structed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak 
hands. Thy words have upholden him that was failing, 
and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees. But now 



354 JOB. 

it is come upon thee, and thou faintest ; it toucheth thee, 
and thou art troubled." As much as to say, you can 
preach, but you cannot practice. Where are now your 
sermons and your advices to others ? 

It was a shameful thing thus to throw in the good 
man's teeth his testimonies in former days ; but Job, who 
under all his sorrow, always retained his clearness of 
intellect and singular sbrewdness, took the words of 
Eliphaz and used them for his own comfort. They were 
bread and meat to him, though brought in a raven's 
mouth. 

"Yes," says he, "I have comforted many, and my 
words have instructed the ignorant and strengthened the 
feeble, and this is so much my comfort in the hour of my 
affliction that I dare not even ask God to let loose his 
hand upon me and end my life. Let him not spare me, 
for I have the testimony of my conscience that I have 
not been disloyal to my God. The taunt of my accuser 
proves that I have not concealed the words of the Holy 
One." 

It is always well to be able thus to turn the enemy's 
guns upon himself, and to extract comfort from that 
which was meant to grieve us. 

Job made no idle boast when he said that he had not 
concealed the words of the Holy One, for we know from 
his history that he had been a bold confessor of the truth 
of God. We are informed that he was carefully watch- 
ful as to his own family that the words of the Holy One 
should be tbere esteemed and known, especially that 
grandest of all holy words concerning sacrifice and atone- 
ment : for we read that when his children had kept birth* 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 355 

days at each other's houses and had fulfilled theL £ays of 
feasting, "Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up 
early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings accord- 
ing to the number of them all ; for Job said, it may be 
that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. 
Thus did Job continually." 

He was earnest for the purity of his family and the 
keeping up of the sacrifices typical of the cleansing of 
sin : and thus he made known to his descendants the 
central word of all the words of the Holy One. 

Even in the time of his affliction the patriarch had 
not spoken other than according to the mind of God. 
What said he when he had lost all his possession, and 
was left without a child ? ' ' Naked came I out of my 
mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither : the 
Lord gave, and the Lord taketh away; and blessed be 
the name of the Lord." 

And when his wife, seeing him covered with a loath- 
some disease, bade him curse God and die, he did not 
withhold his testimony from her, but said, "What? shall 
we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not 
receive evil ? " 

These were words given him of the Lord in the mo- 
ment of his need, and he shunned not to utter them with 
ail his heart. The inspired testimony about this holy 
man is that "in all this did not Job sin with his lips." 

It is clear that in his prosperity Job was a most faith- 
ful witness for God. We will not speculate about the 
time or the place in which he lived ; but wherever he 
iived he was a man of great influence, and was held in 
nigh esteem. 



356 JOB. 

He says, " When I went out to the gate through the 
city, when I prepared my seat in the street, the young 
men saw me, and hid themselves : and the aged arose, 
and stood up. The princes refrained talking, and laid 
their hand on their mouth." 

This influence was always exerted for the cause of 
truth and righteousness, which is always the cause of 
God. In the twenty-ninth chapter he says of himself, 
1 ' When the ear heard me, then it blessed me ; and when 
the eye saw me, it gave witness to me : because I de- 
livered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him 
that had none to help him. The blessing of him that 
was ready to perish came upon me : and I caused the 
widow's heart to sing for joy. I put on righteousness, 
and it clothed me ; my judgment was as a robe and a 
diadem." 

He was thus by his conduct a perpetual protest 
against sin, a continued proclamation of justice, right- 
eousness, mercy, and love, in the age in which he lived ; 
and he could, therefore, say without any word of egotism, 
"I have not concealed the words of the Holy One." 

This was now a comfort to him when all other com- 
forts failed : he knew that his affliction was not the fruit 
of a treacherous departure from God, or a cowardly con- 
cealment of his faith. He felt that he could face death, 
and even long for it, because he had been loyal to his 
God, and faithful to the light which had been vouchsafed 
him from on high. 

It was not self-righteousness which led Job to speak 
thus, but only such a use of the sure evidences of grace 
as would be natural and proper in any godly man in the 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 357 



hour of his extremity. It is the nature of obedience to 
yield peace to the heart, and no one can be blamed for 
enjoying that peace. It cannot be wrong for our con- 
sciences to bear testimony to the sincerity and purity of 
our lives, nor wrong that when our hearts condemn us 
not, we have confidence towards God. He who is most 
undivided in his faith in Jesus may, nevertheless, derive 
comfort from having kefcrt enabled to be loyal to his God. 

Did not Paul bless God for much the same faithful- 
ness as Job claimed when he said, ' ' I have fought a good 
fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith " ? 

Happy shall be he who has a clear testimony within 
his soul, that he has declared the truth of God in all 
honesty and earnestness, even to the end. 

Job had not refrained from an open confession of his 
own faith in God ; he had been known in the gates of the 
city as a worshipper of the Lord, a perfect and an up- 
right man, one that feared God and eschewed evil. He 
had never hidden his faith, but had owned one God, 
whom he here calls the Holy One. 

While gods many and lords many divided the fealty 
of nations, Job was true to the one only God ; and be- 
lieved his words as they were revealed to him. Nor was 
be content with an open confession of his own faith, Job 
had made a continued communication of what he knew 
to others. He had taught his family, — there, all teach- 
ing should begin. He had taught his fellow-citizens by 
his example — the most powerful of all teaching. Never 
had he wandered into idolatry, or worshipped the sun 
when it shined, or kissed his hand to the queen of 
heaven : but, on the contrary, he had avowed the one 



358 JOB. 

and only Lord without fear. He asks, "Did I fear a 
multitude, or did the contempt of families terrify me that 
I kept silence ? " 

So faithful had he been that he cries, "Let me be 
weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine 
integrity." This was high ground to take, but it evidently 
strengthened the good man's heart to bear his troubles, 
and it will do the same for us if we can win the same 
witness from our consciences. 

Job, according to the language of our text, evidently 
had a great reverence for every word of the Lord. He 
would not have used that term, "the Holy One," if he 
had not felt the holiness of the words themselves, and if 
he had not stood in solemn awe of Him who spake them. 
He felt that they must not be concealed, because the 
words of the Holy One should have free course, and be 
published abroad. 

Should not the word of a king be circulated through 
the length and breadth of his dominions ? Have you 
and I such a reverence for every revealed truth ! Do we 
stand in awe of every word of God ? If we do it will be 
well for us if we practically express our homage after the 
fashion of David, who said, "With my lips have I de- 
clared all the judgments of Thy mouth." 

The words which God speaks are uttered that we may 
speak them. It is the best homage to a word to hear it 
and to repeat it. 

Let us proclaim God's words abroad : they are light 
and are not meant to be hidden. Such candles ought 
never to be put under a bushel. To hide the divine, 
would be a great sin against the Most High, and to warn 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. C. H. SPURGEON. 359 

you against it will be the aim of this morning's discourse. 
I shall speak with the earnest prayer that both to myself 
and to each one of you there may be a personal voice 
from God stirring every conscience as to this matter, and 
making each one of us enquire whether or no we also can 
say, "I have not concealed the words of the Holy One." 



JUDAS. 



I shall not detain you long, I trust, but I must now 
give you another bad case ; the worst of all. It is the 
repentance of despair. Will you turn to the 27th chap- 
ter of Matthew, and the 4th verse ? There you have a 
dreadful case of the repentance of despair. 

You will recognize the character the moment I read 
the verse : " And Judas said, I have sinned." 

Yes, Judas the traitor, who had betrayed his Master, 
when he saw that his Master was condemned, ' ' repented, 
and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief 
priests and elders, saying, ' I have sinned, in that I have 
betrayed innocent blood,' and cast down the pieces in the 
temple, and went" and what? — "and hanged himself " 
Here is the worst kind of repentance of all ; in fact, I 
know not that I am justified in calling it repentance ; it 
must be called remorse of conscience. 

But Judas did confess his sin, and then went and 
hanged himself. Oh ! that dreadful, that terrible, that 
hideous confession of despair. Have you never seen it? 



360 JUDAS. 

If you never have, then bless God that you never were 
called to see such a sight. I have seen it once in my 
life, I pray God I may never see it again, — the repent- 
ance of the man who sees death staring him in the face, 
and who says, il I have sinned." 

You tell him that Christ has died for sinners ; and he 
answers, ' ' There is no hope for me ; I have cursed God 
to his face ; I have defied him ; my day of grace I know 
is past ; my conscience is seared with a hot iron ; I am 
dying and I know I shall be lost ! " 

Such a case as that happened long ago, you know, 
and is on record — the case of Francis Spira — the most 
dreadful case, perhaps, except that of Judas, which is 
upon record in the memory of man. 

Oh ! my hearers, will any of you have such a re- 
pentance ? If you do, it will be a beacon to all persons 
who sin in future ; if you have such a repentance as that, 
it will be a warning to generations yet to come. 

In the life of Benjamin Keach — and he also was one 
of my predecessors — I find the case of a man who had 
been a professor of religion, but had departed from the 
profession, and had gone into awful sin. When he came 
to die, Keach, with many other friends, went to see him, 
but they could never stay with him above five minutes at 
a time, for he said, ' ' Get ye gone ; it is of no use your 
coming to me ; I have sinned away the Holy Ghost ; I 
am like Esau, I have sold my birthright, and though I 
am seeking it carefully with tears, I can never find it 
again." 

And then he would repeat dreadful words like these, 
«■ My mouth is filled with gravel stones, and I drink 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. jgj 

wormwood day and night. Tell me not, tell me not of 
Christ! I know he is a Savior, but I hate him and he 
hates me. I know I must die; I know I must perish!" 
And then followed doleful cries, and hideous noises, such 
as none could bear. They returned again in his placid 
moments, only to stir him up once more, and make him 
cry out in his despair, "I am lost! I am lost! It is of 
no use your telling me anything about it !" 

Ah! there may be a man here who may have such a 
death as that; let me warn him, ere he come to it; and 
may God, the Holy Spirit, grant that that man may be 
turned unto God, and made a true penitent, and then he 
need not have any fear; for he who has had his sins 
washed away in a Savior's blood, need not have any re- 
morse for his sins, for they are pardoned through the 
Redeemer. 



PAUL. 

AS MISSIONARY. 



In the first place, we have not men with Apostolic 
zeal. Converted in a most singular way, by a direct in- 
terposition from heaven, Paul, from that time forward, 
became an earnest man. He had always been earnest, 
in his sin and in his persecutions ; but after he heard that 
voice from heaven, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou 
me?" and had received the mighty office of an apostle, 
and he had been sent forth a chosen vessel to the Gen- 
tiles, you can scarce conceive the deep, the awful earn- 
estness which he manifested. 



362 PAUL. 

Whether he did eat, or drink, or whatsoever he did, 
he did all for the glory of his God ; he never wasted an 
honr ; he was employing his time either in ministering 
with his own hands unto his necessities, or else lifting 
those hands in the Synagogue, on Mars-hill, or anywhere 
where he could command the attention of the multitude. 
His zeal was so earnest, and so burning, that he could 
not (as we unfortunately do) restrain himself within a 
little sphere ; but he practiced the Word everywhere. 

It was not enough for him to have it handed down 
that he was the Apostle of Pisidia, but he must go also 
to Pamphylia ; it was not enough that he should be the 
great preacher of Pamphylia and Pisidia, but he must go 
also to Attalia ; and when he had preached throughout 
all Asia, he must needs take ship to Greece, and preach 
there also. 

I believe not only once did Paul hear in his dream 
the men of Macedonia saying, " Come over and help us," 
but every day and hour he heard the cry in his ears from 
multitudes of souls, "Paul, Paul, come over and help 
us." 

He could not restrain himself from preaching. 

" Woe is unto me," he said, * * if I preach not the 
gospel. God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross 
of Christ." 

Oh ! if you could have seen Paul preach, you would 
not have gone away as you do from some of us, with half 
a conviction, that we do not mean what we say. His 
eyes preached a sermon without his lips, and his lips 
preached it, not in a cold and frigid manner, but every 
word fell with an overwhelming power upon the hearts 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 363 

of his hearers. He preached with power, because he 
was in downright earnest. You had a conviction, when 
•you saw him, that he was a man who felt he had a work 
to do and must do it, and could not contain himself un- 
less he did do it. He was the kind of preacher whom 
you would expect to see walk down the pulpit stairs 
straight into his coffin, and then stand before his God, 
ready for his last account. 

Where are the men like that man ? I confess I can- 
not claim that privilege, and I seldom hear a solitary 
sermon which comes up to the mark in earnest, deep, 
passionate longing for the souls of men. 

We have no eyes now like the eyes of the Savior, 
which could weep over Jerusalem ; we have few voices 
like that earnest, impassioned voice which seemed per- 
petually to cry, ' ' Come unto me, and I will give you 
rest." "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I 
have gathered thee as a hen gathereth her chickens under 
her wings, but ye would not." 

If ministers of the gospel were more hearty in their 
work of preaching ; if, instead of giving lectures and 
devoting a large part of their time to literary and political 
persuits, they would preach the Word of God, and 
preach it as if they were preaching for their own lives, 
ah ! then, my brethren, we might expect great success ; 
but we cannot expect it while we go about it in a half- 
hearted way, and have not that zeal, that earnestness, 
that deep purpose which characterized those men of old. 

Then, again, I take it, we have not men in our days 
who can preach like Paul — as to their faith. What did 
Paul do ? He went to Philippi : did he know a soul 



364 PAUL. 

there ? Not one. He had his Master's truth, and he 
believed in the power of it. He was unattended and 
devoid of pomp, or show, or parade ; he did not go to a 
pulpit with a soft cushion in it to address a respectable 
congregation, but he walked through the streets and be- 
gan to preach to the people. 

He went to Corinth, to Athens, alone, single-handed, 
to tell the people the gospel of the blessed God. Why ? 
Because he had faith in the gospel, and believed it would 
save souls, and hurl down idols from their thrones. He 
had no doubt about the power of the gospel ; but now- 
a-days, my brethren, we have not faith in the gospel we 
preach. How many there are who preach a gospel, 
which they are afraid will not save souls ; and, therefore, 
they add little bits of their own to it in order, as they 
think, to win men to Christ ! 

We have known men who believed Calvinistic doc- 
trines, but who preached Calvinism in the morning and 
Arminianism in the evening, because they were afraid 
God's gospel would not convert sinners, so they would 
manufacture one of their own. 

I hold that a man who does not believe his gospel to 
be able to save men's souls, does not believe it at all. If 
God's truth will not save men's souls, man's lies cannot ; 
if God's truth will not turn men to repentance, I am sure 
there is nothing in this world that can. 

When we believe the gospel to be powerful, then we 
shall see it is powerful. If I walk into this pulpit, and 
say, "I know what I preach is true," the world says I 
am an egotist. "The young man is dogmatical ! " 

Ay, and the young man means to be ; he glories in it, 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPTRGEON. 365 

« — — — ■ ■ >. 

he keeps it to himself as one of his peculiar titles. -*»r 
he does most firmly believe what he preaches. 

God forbid that I should ever come tottering ap the 
pulpit stairs to teach anything I was not quite ^ure of, 
something which I hoped might save sinners, but of 
which I was not exactly certain. When I have faith in 
my doctrines, those doctrines will prevail, foi confidence 
is the winner of the palm. 

He who hath courage enough te grasp the standard, 
and hold it up, will be sure enough to find followers. He 
who says, " I know," and asserts it boldly iw his Master's 
name, without disputing, will not be long before he will 
find men who will listen to what he says, and who will 
say, "This man speaks with authority, <*nd not as the 
Scribes and Pharisees." 

That is one reason why we do not succeed : we have 
not faith in the gospel. We send educated men to India 
in order to confound the learned Brahmins. Nonsense ! 
Let the Brahmins say what they like ; have we any busi- 
ness to dispute with them ? * * Oh, but they are so intel- 
lectual and so clever. " What have we to do with that ? 
We are not to seek to be clever in order to meet them. 
Leave the men of the world to combat their metaphysical 
errors ; we have merely to say, " This is truth : he that 
believeth it shall be saved, and he that denieth it shall 
be damned." 

We have no right to come down from the high ground 
of divine authoritative testimony ; and until we maintain 
that ground, and come out as we ought to do, girded with 
the belt of divinity — preaching not what may be true, 



363 PAUL. 

but asserting that which God has most certainly revealed 
— we shall not see success. 

We want a deeper faith in our gospel ; we want to be 
quite sure of what we preach. Brethren, I take it we 
have not the faith of our fathers. I feel myself a poor 
driveling thing in point of faith. Why, methought some- 
times I could believe anything ; but now a little difficulty 
comes before me ; I am timid, and I fear. It is when I 
preach with this unbelief in my heart that I preach un- 
successfully ; but when I preach with faith and can say, 
" I know my God has said, that in the self-same hour he 
will give me what I shall preach, and careless of man's 
esteem, I preach what I believe to be true," then it is 
that God owns faith and crowns it with his own crown. 

Again : we have not enough self-denial, and that is 
one reason why we do not prosper. Far be it from me 
to say aught against the self-denial of those worthy 
brethren who have left their counrry to cross the stormy 
deep and preach the Word. We hold them to be men 
who are to be had in honor ; but still I ask, where is the 
self-denial of the apostle now-a-days ? I think one of 
the greatest disgraces that ever was cast upon the church 
in these days was that last mission to Ireland. 

Men went over to Ireland, but like men who have 
valor's better part, brave, bold men, they came back 
again, which is about all we can say of the matter. 

Why do they not go there again ? Why, they say the 
Irish " hooted" them. Now, don't you think you see 
Paul taking a microscope out of his pocket, and looking 
at the little man who should say to him, " I shall not go 
there to preach because the Irish hooted me ?" 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 367 

"What!" he says, "is this a preacher? — what a 
small edition of a preacher he must be, to be sure !" 

1 ' Oh ! but they threw stones at us, you have no idea 
how badly they treated us !" 

Just tell that to the Apostle Paul. I am sure you 
would be ashamed to do so. ' ' Oh ! but in some places 
the police interfered, and said that we should only create 
a riot." 

What would Paul have said to that ? The police in- 
terfering ! I did not know that we had any right to care 
about governments. Our business is to preach the Word, 
and if we must be put in the stocks, there let us lie ; 
there would come no hurt of it at last. 

' ' Oh ! but they might have killed some of us. " That 
is just it. Where is that zeal which counted not its life 
dear so that it might win Christ ? I believe that the 
killing of a few of our ministers would have prospered 
Christianity. 

However we might mourn over it, and none more 
than myself, I say that the murder of a dozen of them 
would have been no greater ground for grief than the 
slanghter of our men by hundreds in a successful fight 
for hearths and homes. I would count my own blood 
most profitably shed in so holy a struggle. 

How did the gospel prosper aforetime ? Were there 
not some who laid down their lives for it ; and did not 
others walk to victory over their slain bodies ; and must 
it not be so now ? If we are to start back because we 
are afraid of being killed, heaven knows when the gospel 
is to spread over the world — we do not. 

What have other missionaries done ? Have they not 



368 PAUL. 

braved death in its direst forms, and preached the Word 
amid countless dangers ? My brethren, we say again, 
we find no fault, for we, ourselves, might err in the same 
manner ; but we are sure we are therein not like Paul. 
He went to a place where they stoned him with stones, 
and dragged him out as dead. Did he say, ' ' Now, for 
the future I will not go where they will ill-treat me !" 

No, for he says, ' ' Of the Jews five times received I 
forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, 
thrice I suffered shipwreck." 

I am sure we have not the self-denial of the apostles. 
We are more carpet-knights and Hyde-park-warriors. 
W T hen I go to my own house and think how comfortable 
and happy I am, I say to myself, "How little I do for 
my Master ! I am ashamed that I cannot deny myself 
for His truth, and go everywhere preaching His Word." 
I look with pity upon people who say, " Do not preach 
so often ; you will kill yourself." O my God, what would 
Paul have said to such a thing as that ? " Take care of 
your constitution ; you are rash ; you are enthusiastic." 

When I compare myself with one of those men of 
old, I say, " Oh, that men should be found calling them- 
selves Christians, who seek to stop our work of faith and 
labor of love, for the sake of a little consideration about 
the 'constitution,' which gets all the stronger for preach- 
ing God's Word." 

I have one more remark to make here with regard to 
the style in which we go to work. I fear that we have 
not enough of the divine method of itineracy. Paul was 
a great itinerant : he preached in one place, and there 
were twtlve converted there ; he made a church at once; 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 369 

he did not stop till he had five hundred ; but when he 
had twelve, he went off to another place. A holy woman 
takes him in ; she has a son and daughter ; they are 
saved and baptized — there is another church. Then he 
goes on ; wherever he goes the people believe and are 
baptized, wherever he meets a family who believe, he or 
his companion baptizes all the house, and goes about his 
way still forming churches and appointing elders over 
them. 

This was no doubt a special vision sent of God for tbe 
direction of the Apostle Paul. For we are told in the 
next verse, that they assuredly gathered from this vision, 
that the Lord had called them to preach the gospel in 
Macedonia. And yet the vision may be very readily ac- 
counted for by natural causes. Men usually dream of 
that which is most upon their minds. Who would marvel 
that the miser should, in his restless sleep, be pictured to 
his own sight as counting over his gold ? Who wonders 
that the morher's dream is often concerning her fair in- 
i'ant ? Who marvels that the wife frequently dreams of 
shipwrecks, when, in the stormy night, she lies upon her 
b^d, her last thoughts having been exercised concerning 
her husband at sea ? You wonder not that the soldier in 
the trenches dreams of battle. 

And hence we cannot marvel that the Apostle Paul, 
whose whole soul was full of his Master's cause, should 
have a vision in the night concerning a new field of labor, 
which God had intended to open up to him. 

You will remember that the apostle was, on this oc- 
casion, in a peculiar condition. He at first endeavored 
to preach the gospel in Phrygia and Galatia, but he was 



370 PA ^L. 



forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the Word in Asia. 
And ' ' after they had come to Mysia, they essayed to go 
into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered them not." 

The apostle was like Abraham of old ; he went forth, 
not knowing whither he went. There was a certain path 
which he must take, and when he strove to turn either to 
the right hand or to the left, the Spirit directly forbade 
him, and he was compelled to go on till he came to the 
sea-port of Troas. 

There, wearied with his journey, he cast himself upon 
his couch, and in the midst of the night a vision appeared 
unto him. A man who, by his brogue and his dress, was 
discovered to be a Macedonian, said to him, " Come over 
and help us. " 

God sometimes tells men in their sleep the secret 
they could not discover when they were awake. We 
have heard of the preacher who, tired late on Saturday 
evening, has been unable to think of a discourse, in the 
middle of the night has dreamed it through, and on the 
morrow has ascended his pulpit and preached it. What 
wonder, then, that the Apostle Paul, specially directed 
by the Spirit of God, after all day long wearily exercis- 
ing his mind as to the journey God intended him to take, 
should, after all, when in his sleep, have a vision from 
on high, teaching him where he should go. 

'* Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, 
that it shall be even as it was told me." — Acts xxvii. 25. 

The presence of a brave man in the hour of danger, 
is a very great comfort to his companions. It is a grand 
thing to observe Paul so bold, so calm, in the midst of 
all the hurly-burly of the storm, and talking so cheer- 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 371 

fully, and so encouragingly, to the crew, and to the 
soldiery, and to the prisoners. 

You must have seen in many events in history that it 
is the one man, after all, that wins the battle : all the 
rest play their parts well when the one heroic spirit lifts 
the standard. Every now and then we hear some sim- 
pleton or other talking against a " one-man ministry,'' 
when it has been a one-man ministry from the com- 
mencement of the world to the present day; and when- 
ever you try to have any other form of ministry, except 
that of each individual saint discharging his own minis- 
try, and doing it thoroughly, and heartily, and independ- 
ently, and bravely, in the sight of God, you very soon 
run upon quick-sands. 

Recollect, Christian man, that wherever you are 
placed you are to be the one man, and you are to have 
courage and independence of spirit and strength of mind 
received from God, that with it you may comfort those 
around you who are of the weaker sort. 

So act that your confidence in God shall strengthen 
the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees, and your 
calm, quiet look shall say to them that are of a faint 
heart, "Be strong; fear not," 

If you are to do this, and I trust you will do it, in 
the sick chamber, in the midst of the troubles of life, in 
the church, and everywhere else, you must be strong 
yourself. Take it as a good rule that nothing can come 
out of you that is not in you. You cannot render real 
encouragement to others unless you have courage with- 
in yourself. 

Now, the reason why Paul was able to embolden his 



372 PAUL. 

companions was that he had encouraged himself in his 
God ; he was calm, or else he could not have calmed 
those around him. Imagine him excited and all in a 
tremble, and yet saying, "Sirs, be of good cheer." 

Why, they would have thought that he mocked them, 
and they would have replied, ' ' Be of good cheer your- 
self, sir, before you encourage us. " 

So, my dear brothers and sisters, you must trust God 
and be calm and strong, or else you will not be of such 
service in the world and in the church as you ought to 
be. Get full, and then you will run over, but you can 
never fill others till you become full yourselves. Be 
yourselves ' ' strong in the Lord, and in the power of his 
might," and that you will be as a standard lifted up to 
which the timid will rally. 

But notice that Paul's faith was faith in God. "I 
believe God," said he. Nobody else in the ship could 
see any hope in God. With the exception of one or two 
like-minded with Paul, they thought that God had for- 
saken them, if, indeed, they thought of God at all. 

But there had that night stood by Paul's side an 
angel fresh from heaven, bright with the divine presence, 
and, strengthened by his message, Paul said, ' ' I believe 
God." That was something more than saying "I believe 
in God": this many do, and derive but slender comfort 
from the belief. But "I believe God y believe Him, be- 
lieve His truthfulness, believe the word that He has 
spoken, believe in His mercy and His power. I believe 
God." This made Paul calm, peaceful, strong. Would 
to God that all professing Christians did really believe 
God. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 373 

Believing God, he believed the message that God had 
sent him, drank in every word and was revived by it. 
God had said, "Fear not, Paul; I have given thee all 
them that sail with thee." 

He believed it. He felt certain that God, having 
promised it, was able to perform it ; and amidst the howl- 
ing of the winds Paul clung to that promise. He was 
sure that no hair of any man's head would be harmed. 
The Lord had said the preserving word, and it was 
enough for his servant. Has He said it, and shall He 
not do it ? Has He spoken it, and shall it not come to 
pass ? He believed God that it should be even as it was 
told him. 

When Paul wrote this ever-memorable text, " This is 
a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that 
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," he 
placed it in connection with himself. I would have you 
carefully notice the context. Twelfth verse : — "I thank 
Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that He 
counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry; who 
was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injuri- 
ous : but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in 
unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding 
abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. 
This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, 
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. " 

You see, the apostle had spoken of himself, and then 
it was that the Holy Spirit put it into his mind to write 
of the glorious salvation of which he was so notable a 
subject. 

Truly it was a seasonable and suggestive connection 



374 PAUL. 

in which to place this glorious gospel text. What he 
preached to others was to be seen in himself. 

When I read to you the story of Saul's conversion, 
suppose I had finished it by making the remark, * ' This 
is a faithful saying, that Christ Jesus came into the world 
to save sinners," you would all have said, -'That is true, 
and it is a natural inference from the narrative." 

Such a remark would have served as the moral of the 
whole story. It is an easy and a simple inference from 
such a conversion, that Christ Jesus must have come into 
the world to save sinners. See, then, why Paul uttered 
it in this particular place. He could not help bringing 
his own case forward ; but when he did bring it forward 
it was to add emphasis to this declaration that Jesus 
Christ came into the world to save sinners. 

It is my conviction that our Lord in infinite wisdom 
intends that his ministers should themselves be proofs of 
the doctrines which they teach. If a young man, a very 
young man, stands up to tell you of the experience of an 
aged Christian, you say at once, * ' That may be very 
true, but you cannot prove it, for you are not an aged 
person yourself." 

If one who has been privileged in the providence of 
God to enjoy the comforts of life stands up to preach 
upon the consolations of the Spirit in poverty, you say, 
" Yes, that is very true, but you cannot speak from ex- 
perience yourself. " 

Hence, the Lord likes His servants to have such an 
experience that their testimony shall have a man at the 
back of it. He would have their lives sustain and ex- 
plain their testimonies. Wka Paul said thai Christ 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 375 

came into the world to save sinners, his own conversion, 
his own joy in the Lord, were proof positive of it. He 
was a witness who had tasted and handled the good 
Word of life to which he witnessed. 

Paul went to heaven years ago, but his evidence is 
not vitiated by that fact ; for a truthful statement is not 
affected by the lapse of time. If a statement was made 
yesterday, it is just as truthful as if you were hearing it 
to-day; and if it were made, as this was, eighteen hun- 
dred years ago, yet, if true then (and nobody disputed it 
in Paul's day), it is true now. 

The facts recorded in the gospels are as much facts 
now as ever, and they ought to have the same influence 
upon our minds as they had upon the minds of the 
apostles. 

At this moment the statement that Jesus Christ came 
into the world to save sinners has Paul still at the back 
of it. "He being dead yet speaketh." Oh, you who 
are burdened with your sins, I want you to see Saul of 
Tarsus before you at this moment, and to hear him say, 
with penitent voice, in your presence, "The Lord Jesus 
came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am 
chief." Doubt not the statement, for the man is the 
evidence of it. He who saved Paul can save you : yea, 
he is willing now to display his power upon you. Be not 
disobedient to the heavenly message. 

First, then, who are the chief of sinners ? Paul says 
that he was the chief. I think, however, that he was 
only one of the regiment. There are different classes of 
sinners, and some are greater and some less. All men 
are truly sinners, but all men are not equally sinners. 



3 76 PAUL. 

They are all in the mire ; but they have not all sunk to 
an equal depth in it. It is true they have all fallen deep 
enough to perish in sin, unless the grace of God prevent; 
yet there are differences in the degrees of guilt, and there 
will doubtless be differences in the degrees of punish- 
ment. 

Some are the chief of sinners in the same way as the 
Apostle Paul, for they have persecuted the church of 
God. Paul, who was then called Saul, had given his 
vote against Stephen ; and when Stephen was stoned, he 
kept the clothes of them that murdered him. He felt 
that blood lying upon his soul long afterward, and he be- 
moaned it. 

Would not you, if you had been a helper at the mur- 
der of some child of God, feel that you were among the 
chief of sinners ? If you had been willingly and wilfully, 
maliciously and eagerly, a helper in putting a man of 
God like Stephen to death, you would write yourself 
down as a sinner of crimson dye ? Why, I think that I 
should say, " God may forgive me, but I will never for- 
give myself." It would seem such a horrid crime to lie 
upon one's soul. Yet this was merely a beginning. Saul 
was like a leopard, who, having once tasted blood, must 
always have his tongue in it. His very breath was 
threatening, and his delight was slaughter. He harassed 
the people of God : he made great havoc of the saints: 
he compelled them, he says, to blaspheme: he had them 
beaten in the synagogues, driven from city to city, and 
even put to death. 

This must have remained upon his heart as a dark 
memory, even after the Lord Jesus Christ had fully for- 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 377 

given him. When he knew, as Paul did know, that he 
was a justified man through the righteousness of Jesus 
Christ, yet he must always have felt a smiting at his 
heart to think that these innocent lambs had been worried 
by him ; that for no other reason but that they were 
lovers of the Crucified, he had panted for their blood. 

This matter of deadly persecution placed Saul head 
and shoulders above other sinners. This was the top- 
stone of the pyramid of his sin, "because I persecuted 
the church of Christ." 

I thank God that there is no man here who has that 
particular form of sin upon his conscience in having 
actually put to death or joined in the slaughter of any 
child of God. The laws of our country have happily 
prevented your being stained with that foul offence, and 
I bless the Lord that it is so. Yet, if there should be 
such among those who are hearing these words, or among 
those who shall one day read them, I must confess that 
they are, indeed, numbered among the chief of sinners, 
and I pray God to grant that they may obtain mercy as 
Saul did. 

I would fain hope that you are saying, ''I do now 
repent, and by God's grace I will go. " If so, let me tell 
you there are a great many in heaven who once, like 
you, said, "I will not." but they afterwards repented 
and are now saved. 

I will give you one picture. Yonder, I see a company 
of men on horseback, and there is one, the proudest of 
them all, to whom they act as a guard ; they are going 
to Damascus, that he may take Christians to prison and 
compel them to blaspheme. Saul of Tarsus is the name 



378 PAUL. 

of that cruel, murderous persecutor. When Stephen was 
put to death, God said to this man Saul, " Go, work in 
my vineyard," but Saul said plainly, " I will not," and 
to prove his enmity, he helped to put Stephen to death. 
There he is riding in hot haste, upon his evil errand, none 
more set and determined against the Lord. Yet my 
Lord Jesus can tame the lion, and even make a lamb of 
him. 

As he rides along, a bright light is seen, brighter than 
the sun at noonday; he falls from his horse, he lies 
trembling on the ground, and he hears a voice out of 
heaven, saying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" 
Lifting up his eyes with astonishment, he sees that he 
had ignorantly been persecuting the Son of God. 

What a change that one discovery wrought in him. 

That voice, "I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest," 
broke his hard heart, and won him to the cause. You 
know how three days after that, that proud and bigoted 
man was baptized upon profession of the faith of Christ, 
whom he had just now persecuted ! and if you want to 
see an earnest preacher, where can you find a better 
than the Apostle Paul, who, with heart on fire, writes 
again and again, "God forbid that I should glory, save 
in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." 

I hope there is a Saul here, who is to be struck down 
this morning. Lord, strike him down ! Eternal Spirit, 
strike him down now! You did not know, perhaps, that 
you had been fighting God, but you thought the religion 
of Jesus to be a foolish dream. You did not know that 
you had insulted the dying Savior ; now you do know it, 



BIBLE CHARACTERS.- — C. H. SPURGEON 379 



may your conscience be affected, and from this, day forth 
may you serve the Lord. 

" For God, who commanded the light to shine out of 
darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of 
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," — 2 Corin- 
thians iv.6. 

The apostle is explaining the reason io\j his preach- 
ing Christ with so much earnestness : he had received 
divine light, and he felt bound to spread it. One great 
motive power of a true ministry is trusteeship. The 
Lord has put us in trust with the gospel ; he has filled us 
with a treasure with which we are to enrich the world. 
The text explains in full what it is with which the Lord 
has entrusted us : he has bestowed upon us " the light of 
the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus 
Christ," and it is ours to reflect the light, to impart the 
knowledge, to manifest the glory, to point to the Savior's 
face, and to proclaim the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Having such a work before us, we faint not, but press 
onward with our whole heart. 

With no other preface than this we shall ask your 
attention this morning to the subject of that knowledge 
in which Paul delighted so much. What was this knowl- 
edge which to his mind was the chief of all, and the 
most worthy to be spread ? It was the knowledge of 
God. 

Truly a most needful and proper knowledge for all 
God's creatures. For a man not to know his Maker and 
Ruler is deplorable ignorance indeed. The proper study 
of mankind is God. Paul not only knew that there is a 
God, for he had known that before his converskrp • none 



380 PAUL. 

can more surely believe in the Godhead than did Paul as 
a Jew. Nor does he merely intend that he had learned 
somewhat of the character of God, for that also he had 
known from the Old Testament Scriptures before he was 
met with on the way to Damascus ; but now he had come 
to know God in a closer, clearer, and surer way, for he 
had seen him incarnate in the person of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

The apostle had also received the knowledge of ''the 
glory of God." Never had the God of Abraham ap- 
peared so glorious as now. God in Christ Jesus had won 
the adoring wonder of the apostle's instructed mind. He 
had known Jehovah's glory as the One and only God, he 
had seen that glory in creation declared by the heavens 
and displayed upon the earth, he had beheld that glory 
in the law which blazed from Sinai and shed its insuffer- 
able light upon the face of Moses ; but now, beyond all 
else, he had come to perceive the glory of God in the 
face, or person, of Jesus Christ, and this had won his 
soul. 

This special knowledge had been communicated to 
him at his conversion when Jesus spake to him out of 
heaven. In this knowledge he had made great advances 
by experience and by new revelations ; but he had not 
yet learned it to the full, for he was still seeking to know 
it perfectly by the teaching of the divine Spirit, and we 
find him saying, ''That I may know him, and the power 
of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, 
being made conformable unto his death. 

Paul knew not merely God, but God in Christ Jesus; 
not merely "the glory of God," but "the glory of God 




The Burial of Sarah. 
From the Painting by Gustave Dore. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 3gi 

in the face of Jesus Christ. " The knowledge dealt with 
God, but it was Christward knowledge. He pined not 
for a Christless Theism, but for God in Christ. This, 
beloved, is the one thing which you and I should aim to 
know. There are parts of the divine glory which will 
never be seen by us in this life, speculate as we may. 

Mysticism would fain pry into the unknowable ; you 
And I may leave dreamers and their dreams, and follow 
the clear light which shines from the face of Jesus. 

What of God it is needful and beneficial for us to 
know He has revealed in Christ, and whatsoever is not 
there, we may rest assured it is unfit and unnecessary for 
us to know. 

Truly the revelation is by no means scant, for there 
is vastly more revealed in the person of Christ than we 
shall be likely to learn in this mortal life, and even 
eternity will not be too long for the discovery of all the 
glory of God which shines forth in the person of the 
word made flesh. Those who would supplement Chris- 
tianity had better first add to the brilliance of the sun or 
the fullness of the sea. As for us, we are more than 
satisfied with the revelation of God in the person of our 
Lord Jesus, and we are persuaded of the truth of his 
words "he that hath seen me hath seen the Father." 



PHILIP. 



Here is a question for Philip : •' Whence shall we 
buy bread* that these may eat ?" — a question with a pur 



382 PHILIP. 



pose. But there is no question with the Master, for he 
himself knew what he would do. And, if we enter into 
the spirit of the Master there will be an end of questions 
with us, for we shall be perfectly satisfied that He knows 
what He is going to do. 

First, then, here is a question for Philip, as there 
have been many questions for us. Jesus put this ques- 
tion to Philip with the motive of proving him in several 
points. He would thus try his faith. As one has well 
said, " He wanted not food of Philip, but faith." 

The Master enquires : "Whence shall we buy bread, 
that these may eat ?" 

What will Philip say ? If Philip has strong faith, he 
will answer, "Great Master, there is no need to buy 
bread ; thou art greater than Moses, and under Moses 
the people were fed with manna in the wilderness ; thou 
hast but to speak the word, and bread shall be rained 
around the host, and they shall be filled." 

If Philip had possessed great faith he might have re- 
plied, "Thou art greater than Elisha, and Elisha took a 
few loaves and ears of corn and fed therewith the sons 
of the prophets. O wonder-working Lord, thou canst 
do the same." 

If Philip had displayed greater faith still, he might 
have said, "Lord, I do not know where bread is to be 
bought, but it is written, ' Man shall not live by bread 
alone.' Thou canst refresh these people without visible 
bread, thou canst satisfy their hunger and fill them to 
the full, and yet they need not eat a single mouthful ; for 
it is written, ' By every word that preceedeth out of the 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 383 

mouth of God shall man live.' Speak thou the word, 
and they will be at once refreshed." 

This question, therefore, was put to prove Philip's 
faith. It did prove it, and proved it to be very little, 
for he began calculating his pennyworths — "One, two, 
three, four." No ; I will not count two hundred, but 
that is what Philip did. He began counting pennies in- 
stead of looking to Omnipotence. Did you ever do the 
same, dear friend, when you have been tried ? Did you 
ever get reckoning up and counting coppers, instead of 
looking to the eternal God and trusting in him ? I fear 
that few of us can plead exemption from this failure, 
since even Moses once fell into unbelieving calculations. 
"And Moses said, ' The people among whom I am, are 
six hundred thousand footmen ; and thou hast said, I will 
give them flesh, that they may eat a whole month. Shall 
the flocks and the herds be slain for them, to suffice 
them ? or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered to- 
gether for them, to suffice them ? " 

Remember God's answer to his anxious servant, 
And the Lord said unto Moses, "Is the Lord's hand 
waxed short ? thou shalt see now whether my word shall 
come to pass unto thee or not." Even so shall we see 
the faithfulness of God, but if we are unbelieving we 
may have to see it in a way which will painfully bring 
home to us our sin in having distrusted our Lord. 

And, perhaps, it came to Philip because he was not 
quite so forward in the school of grace as some were. 
Philip did not make a very wise remark when he said, 
"Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us," for our Lord 
answered, ■ ' Have I been so long time with you, and yet 



384 PILATE. 



hast thou not known me, Philip ?" He was evidently 
slow in learning. I do not think that Philip was the 
most stupid of the twelve, but I am sure that he was not 
the most intelligent. James and John and Peter were 
the first three : Andrew and Thomas followed close be- 
hind, and probably Philip was close after them. Per- 
haps Philip was number six ; I do not know ; but certainly 
the Savior selected him as not the lowest in the class, 
yet not the highest, and he said to him, ' ' Whence shall 
we buy bread ?" 

Philip had his faculties exercised. Christ tried his 
arithmetic ; he tried his eyesight ; he tried his mind and 
spirit ; and this prepared him to go and serve at the mon- 
ster banquet which followed. A man never does a thing 
well till he has thought about it ; and if Philip had not 
thought about how to feed the multitudes he would not 
have been a fit man to be employed in it. It prepared 
him also to adore his Master after the feast, for Philip 
would say when the feast was over, "The Master asked 
me how it was to be done, but I could not tell him, and 
now, though I have had a share in doing it, he must and 
shall have all the glory. He multiplied the fishes and 
increased the loaves. My poor faith can take no glory 
to itself. He did it. He did it all." 



PILATE. 

Pilate, throughout his term of office, had grossly 
misbehaved himself. He had been an unjust and un- 
scrupulous ruler of the Jews. The Galileans and the 



BIBLE CHARACTERS.— C. H. SPURGEON. 385 

Samaritans both felt the terror of his arms ; for he did 
not hesitate to massacre them at the slightest sign of 
revolt ; and among the Jews themselves he had sent men 
with daggers into the midst of the crowds at the great 
gatherings, and so had cut off those who were obnoxious 
to him. Gain was his object, and pride ruled his spirit. 

At the time when Jesus of Nazareth was brought be- 
fore him, a complaint against him was on the way to 
Tiberius, the Emperor, and he feared lest he should be 
called to account for his oppressions, extortions, and 
murders. His sins at this moment were beginning to 
punish him ; as Job would word it, " The iniquities of 
his heels compassed him about." One terrible portion 
of the penalty of sin is its power to force a man to com- 
mit yet further iniquity. 

Pilate's transgressions were now howling around him 
like a pack of wolves ; he could not face them, and he 
had not grace to flee to the one great refuge ; but his 
fears drove him to flee before them, and there was no 
way apparently open for him but that which led him into 
yet deeper abominations. He knew that Jesus was 
without a single fault, and yet since the Jews clamored 
for his death he felt that he must yield to their demands, 
or else they would raise another accusation against him- 
self, namely, that he was not loyal to the sovereignty of 
Caesar, for he had allowed one to escape who had called 
himself a king. 

If he had behaved justly he would not have been 
afraid of the chief priests and scribes. Innocence is 
brave ; but guilt is cowardly. Pilate's old sins found 
him o*it and made him weak in the presence of the 



386 PILATE. 



ignoble crew, whom otherwise he would have driven from 
the judgment seat. He had power enough to have 
silenced them, but he had not sufficient decision of char- 
acter to end the contention : the power was gone from 
his mind because he knew that his conduct would not 
bear investigation, and he dreaded the loss of his office, 
which he held only for his own ends. 

See there with pity that scornful but vacillating 
creature wavering in the presence of men who were more 
wicked than himself and more determined in their pur^ 
pose. The full determination of the wicked priests caused 
hesitating policy to quail in their presence, and Pilate 
was driven to do what he would gladly have avoided. 

The manner and the words of Jesus had impressed 
Pilate. I say the manner of Jesus, for his matchless 
meekness must have struck the governor as being a very 
unusual thing in a prisoner. He had seen in captured 
Jews the fierce courage of fanaticism ; but there was 
no fanaticism in Christ. He had also seen in many 
prisoners the meanness which will do or say anything to 
escape death ; but he saw nothing of that about our 
Lord. He saw in him unusual gentleness and humility 
combined with majestic dignity. He beheld submission 
blended with innocence. This made Pilate feel how 
awful goodness is. He was impressed — he could not 
help being impressed — with this unique sufferer. Besides, 
our Lord had before him witnessed a good confession — 
you remember how we considered it the other day — and 
though Pilate had huffed it off with the pert question, 
" What is troth ?" and had gone back into the judgment 
hall, yet there was an arrow fixed within him which he 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 387 

could not shake off. It may have been mainly super- 
stition ; but he felt an awe of one whom he half suspected 
to be an extraordinary personage. He felt that he him- 
self was placed in a very extraordinary position, being 
asked to condemn one whom he knew to be perfectly 
innocent. His duty was clear enough, he could never 
have had a question about that ; but duty was nothing to 
Pilate in comparison with his own interests. He would 
spare the Just One if he could do so without endanger- 
ing himself ; but his cowardly fears lashed him on to the 
shedding of innocent blood. 

At the very moment when he was vacillating, when 
he had proffered to the Jews the choice of Barabbas, or 
Jesus of Nazareth ; — at that very moment, I say, when 
he had taken his seat upon the bench, and was waiting 
for their choice, there came from the hand of God a 
warning to him, a warning which would forever make it 
clear that, if he condemned Jesus, it would be done 
voluntarily by his own guilty hands. Jesus must die by 
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, and 
yet it must be by wicked hands that he is crucified and 
slain ; and hence Pilate must not sin in ignorance. 

A warning came to Pilate from his own wife concern- 
ing her morning's dream, a vision of mystery and terror, 
warning him not to touch that just person ; "for," said 
she, "I have suffered many things this day in a dream 
because of him." 

There are times in most men's lives when, though 
they have been wrong, yet they have not quite been set 
on mischief, but have come to a pause and have deliber- 
ated as to their way; and then God in great mercy has 



388 PILATE. 



sent them a caution, and has set up a danger-signal bid- 
ding them stop in their mad career ere they plunged 
themselves fully into irretrievable ruin. Somewhere in 
that direction lies the subject of our present discourse. 
O that the Spirit of God may make it useful to many. 

The next reason why his wife's appeal was ineffectual 
was the fact that Pilate was a coward. A man with 
legions at his back, and yet afraid of a Jewish mob, — 
afraid to let one poor prisoneT go whom he knew to be 
innocent ; afraid because he knew his conduct would not 
bear inspection ! He was, morally, a coward ! Multi- 
tudes of people go to hell because they have not the 
courage to fight their way to heaven. "The fearful and 
unbelieving have their portion in the lake which burneth 
with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. So 
saith the word of God. They are afraid of encouraging 
a fool's laugh, and so rush upon everlasting contempt. 
They could not bear to tear themselves away from old 
companions, and excite remarks and sarcasm among un- 
godly wits, and so they keep their companions and perish 
with them. They have not the pluck to say "No," 
and swim against the stream ; they are such cowardly 
creatures that they will sooner be for ever lost than face 
a little scorn. 

Yet, while there was cowardice in Pilate, there was 
presumption, too. He who was afraid of man and afraid 
to do right, yet dared to incur the guilt of innocent 
blood. Oh, the cowardice of Pilate to take water and 
wash his hands, as if he could wash off blood with water; 
and then to say, "I am innocent of his blood," — which 
was a lie, — "see ye to it." By those last words he 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 389 

brought the blood upon himself, for he consigned hi* 
prisoner to their tender mercies, and they could not have 
laid a hand upon him unless he had given them leave. 
Oh, the daring of Pilate thus in the sight of God to 
commit a murder and disclaim it. There is a strange 
mingling of cowardliness and courage about many men ; 
they are afraid of a man, but not afraid of the eternal 
God, who can destroy them both body and soul in hell. 
This is why men are not saved, even when the best of 
means are used, because they are presumptuous, and 
dare defy the Lord. 

It will not be a piece of mere imagination if I con- 
ceive that at the last great day, when Jesus sits upon the 
judgment-seat, and Pilate stands there to be judged for 
the deeds done in the body, that his wife will be a swift 
witness against him to condemn him. I can imagine 
that at the last great day there will be many such scenes 
as that, wherein those who loved us best will bring the 
most weighty evidence against us, if we are still in our 
sins. I know how it affected me as a lad when my 
mother, after setting before her children the way of sal- 
vation, said to us, "If you refuse Christ and perish, I 
cannot plead in your favor and say that you were ignor- 
ant. No, but I must say Amen to your condemnation." 
I could not bear that ! Would my mother say "Amen" 
to my condemnation ? And yet, Pilate's wife, what 
canst thou do otherwise ? When all must speak the 
truth, what canst thou say but that thy husband was ten- 
derly and earnestly warned hy thee and yet consigned 
the Savior to his enemies ? 

Oh, my ungodly hearers, my soul goes out after you. 



390 pilate's wife. 



"Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die ?" Why will ye sin 
against the Savior ? God grant you may not reject your 
own salvation, but may turn to Christ and find eternal 
redemption in him. 

"Whosoever believeth in Him hath everlasting life/ 



PILATE'S WIFE. 

Fvetver still, Pilate was accessible through the dream 
jx his wife. Henry Melville has a very wonderful dis- 
course upon this topic, in which he tries to show that 
probably if Piiaie had dreamed this dream himself it 
would not have been so operative upon him as when his 
wife dreamed it. 

He takes it as a supposition, which nobody can deny, 
that Pilate had an affectionate and tender wife, who was 
very dear to him. The one brief narrative which we 
have of her certainly looks that way ; it is evident that 
she loved her husband dearly, and would therefore pre- 
vent his acting unjustly to Jesus. To send a warning by 
her was to reach Pilate's conscience through his affections. 
If his beloved wife was distressed it would be sure to 
weigh heavily with him : for he would not have her 
troubled. He would fain shield his tender one from 
every breath of wind and give her perfect comfort, and 
when she pleads it is his delight to yield : ii is, there- 
fore, no small trouble to him that she is suffering, suffer- 
'ag so much as to send a message to him, suffering 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 39 j 

because of one who deserves her good opinion — onv 
whom he himself knows to be without fault. If thi* 
lady was indeed the wife of Pilate's youth, tender and 
dearly beloved, and if she was gradually sickening before 
his eyes, her pale face would rise before his loving 
memory, and her words would have boundless power over 
him when she said, "I have suffered many things in a 
dream." O Claudia Procula, if that were thy name, 
well did the Lord of mercy entrust his message to thy 
persuasive lips, for from thee it would come with tenfold 
influence. Tradition declares this lady to have been a 
Christian, and the Greek church have placed her in their 
calendar as a saint. For this we have no evidence; all 
that we know is that she was Pilate's wife, and used her 
wifely influence to stay him from this crime. 

How often has a tender, suffering, loving woman 
exercised great power over a coarse, rough man ! The 
All-wise One knows this, and hence he often speaks to 
sinful men by this influential agency. He converts one 
in a family that she may be his missionary to the rest. 
Thus he speaks with something better than the tongues 
of men and of angels, for he uses love itself to be his 
orator. 

Affection has more might than eloquence. That is 
why, my friend, God sent you for a little while that dear 
child who prattled to you about the Savior. She is gone 
to heaven now, but the music of her little hymns rings 
in your ear even now, and her talk about Jesus and the 
angels is yet with you. She has been called home; but 
God sent her to you for a season to charm you to him- 
self and win you to the right way. Thus he bade you 



392 



cease from sin and turn to Christ. And that dear mother 
of yours, who is now before the throne, do you remem- 
ber what she said to you when she was dying ? You 
have heard me a great many times, but you never heard 
a sermon from me like that address from her dying couch. 
You can never quite forget it, or shake yourself free from 
its power. Beware how you trifle with it. 

To Pilate his wife's message was God's ultimatum ; 
he warned him never again, and even Jesus stood silent 
before him. O my friend, to you it may be that your 
child, your mother, or your affectionate wife may be 
God's last messenger, the final effort of the warning 
angel to bring you to a better mind. A loving relative, 
pleading with tears, is often the forlorn hope of mercy. 
An attack so skilfully planned and wisely conducted may 
be regarded as the last assault of love upon a stubborn 
spirit, and after this it will be left to its own devices. 

The selection of the wife was no doubt made by in- 
finite wisdom and tenderness, that if possible, Pilate 
might be arrested in his career of crime and strengthened 
to the performance of an act of justice by which he would 
have avoided the most terrible of crimes. 

So, then, we may safely conclude that the Lord has 
his missionaries where the city missionary cannot enter ; 
he sends the little children to sing and pray where the 
preacher is never heard ; he moves the godly woman to 
proclaim the gospel by her lip and life where the Bible is 
not read. He sends a sweet girl to grow up and win a 
brother or a father where no other voice would be allowed 
So tell of Jesus and his love. 

We thank God it is so; it gives hope for the house- 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 393 

holds of this godless city, — it gives us hope even for those 
for whom the Sabbath-bell rings out in vain. They will 
hear, they must hear these home preachers, these mes- 
sengers who tug at their hearts. 

Ay, and let me add that where God does not employ 
a dream, nor use a wife, yet he can get at men's con- 
science by no visible means but by thoughts which come 
unbidden and abide upon the soul. Truths long buried 
suddenly rise up, and when the man is in the very act of 
sin he is stopped in the way, as Balaam was when the 
angel met him. 

How often it has happened that conscience has met 
a guilty man even in the moment when he meant to enjoy 
the pleasure bought with wrong, even as Elijah met 
Ahab at the gate of Naboth's vineyard ! How the king 
starts back as he beholds the prophet : he would sooner 
have seen the very fiend than Elijah. Angrily he cries, 
"Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?" 

Though, indeed, Elijah was his best friend, had he 
known it. Often does conscience pounce upon a man 
when the sweet morsel of sin has just been rolled 
under his tongue, and he is sitting down to enjoy it : the 
visitation of conscience turns the stolen honey into bit- 
terness, and the forbidden joy into anguish. 

Conscience often lies like a lion in a thicket, and 
when the sinner comes along the broad road it leaps 
upon him, and for a while he is sorely put to it. 

The bad man is comparable to leviathan, of which 
we read that his scales are his pride, shut up together as 
with a close seal ; so that the sword of him that layeth 



394 SARAH. 



at him cannot hold, the spear, the dart, nor the javelin ; 
and yet the Lord hath a way of coming at him and of 
sore wounding him. Let us, therefore, both hope and 
pray for the very worst of men. 



SARAH, 

Abraham's faith was such that it led him to obedience. 
He was called to go out, and he went, not knowing 
whither he went. His faith through grace led him to 
perseverance ; for once in God's way he did not leave it, 
but still abode a sojourner with God. His faith led him 
to expectancy; he looked for the promised seed, and not 
only for an Isaac but for the Messiah. So clear was the 
vision of his expectancy that before his eyes Christ was 
set forth, visibly. Did not the Savior, who knew all 
things, say, "Abraham saw my day; he saw it, and was 
glad ?" 

The like faith also dwelt in the breast of Sarah ; and, 
as we are told in the text to look to Sarah as well as 
Abraham, let us not fail to do so. The faith of Sarah 
was not little when she left home with her husband ; for- 
saking her kith and kin from love to God, and to him 
whom she called "lord." 

She acted as if she had said to the great patriarch, 
"Where thou goest I will go; where thou dwellest I will 
dwell, for thy God is my God." 

Nor did the trial of her faith end with the moving ; 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 395 

she had to take up with tent life and all its inconveniences- 
It is the woman that knows the discomfort of domestic 
life under such circumstances. 

We never heard that she complained for a moment, 
though the cold of winter and the heat of summer ar* 
neither of them warded off by a text. 

How readily she entertained her husband's guests. 
Though they might drop in at most unseasonable hours, 
or call her to bake bread in the heat of the day, she wa? 
glad to welcome strangers, for, like her husband, she waa 
given to hospitality. 

I saw you smile, dear friends, when I mentioned 
domestic matters ; but to me it is the solemnity of faith 
that men and woman can not only pray and sing, but 
can put up with household discomforts out of obedience 
to God. 

Certain people look upon faith as a fine, airy, senti- 
mental thing with which to roam among the stars, 
anticipate millenniums, and enjoy yourself in lofty con- 
templation. I believe far more in a faith which, whether 
it eats or drinks, does all to the glory of God ; faith 
which, like Sarah, dwells in the tent and works there; 
faith which is cheerful over a scanty meal and drives 
away the fear of want ; faith which can come down in 
life from the mansion to the cottage, if providence so 
decrees. 

Fjom Abraham's comfortable home at Ur to his gipsy 
wanderings in Palestine the change must have been great, 
but Abraham may not have felt it one-half as much as 
Sarah, for men can rough it and live out of doors, but 
the housewife knows all about it, and great was her faith 



396 SAUL. 



that she never raised a question about the propriety of 
her husband's course of life : and though she laughed 
when she was told that she should bear a son, yet re- 
member that in the eleventh of Hebrews it is written: 
' ' Through faith also Sarah herself received strength. " 
She was the mother of Isaac, not in the power of the 
flesh, but through the energy of faith, therefore look at 
her as the text bids you. 



SAUL. 

And now another character, and another text. In 
the first book of Samuel, the 15th chapter and 24th 
verse: And Saul said unto Samuel, " I have sinned ! " 

Here is the insincere man — the man who is not like 
Balaam, to a certain extent sincere in two things ; but 
the man who is just the opposite — who has no prominent 
point in his character at all, but is moulded everlastingly 
by the circumstances that are passing over his head. 

Such a man was Saul. 

Samuel reproved him, ana he said, "I have sinned." 

But he did not mean what he said : for if you read 
the whole verse you will find him saying, " I have sinnedt 
for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, 
and thy words : because I feared the people !" which was 
a lying excuse. 

Saul never feared anybody; he was always ready 
enough to do his own will — he was the despot. 




David, Sparing Saul. 
From the Painting by Gustave Dore. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 397 

And just before he had pleaded another excuse, that 
he had saved the bullocks and lambs to offer to Jehovah, 
and therefore both excuses could not have been true. 

You remember, my friends, that the most prominent 
feature in the character of Saul was his insincerity. 
One day he fetched David from his bed, as he thought, 
to put him to death in the house. Another time he 
declares, "God forbid that I should do aught against 
thee, my son David. " 

One day, because David saved his life, he said, ' ' Thou 
art more righteous than I ; I will do so no more. " 

The day before he had gone out to fight against his 
own son-in-law, in order to slay him. 

Sometimes Saul was among the prophets, and then 
afterwards among the witches; sometimes in one place, 
and then in another, and insincere in everything. 

How many such we have in every Christian assembly; 
men who are very easily moulded ! Say what you please 
to them, they always agree with you. They have affec- 
tionate dispositions, very likely a tender conscience; but 
then the conscience is so remarkably tender, that when 
touched it seems to give, and you are afraid to probe 
deeper, — it heals as soon as it is wounded. I think I 
used the very singular comparison once before, which I 
must use again : there are some men who seem to have 
india-rubber hearts. If you do but touch them, there is 
an impression made at once; but then it is of no use, it 
soon restores itself to its original character. You may 
press them whatever way you wish, they are so elastic 
you can always effect your purpose; but then they are not 



398 THE PRODIGAL SON. 

fixed in their character, and soon return to be what they 
were before. 

O sirs, too many of you have done the same; you 
have bowed your heads in church, and said, "We have 
erred and strayed from Thy ways ;" and you did not mean 
what you said. You have come to your minister ; you 
have said, " I repent of my sins ;" you did not then feel 
you were a sinner ; you only said it to please him. 

And now you attend the house of God ; no one more 
impressible than you ; the tear will run down your cheek 
in a moment, but yet, notwithstanding all that, the tear 
is dried as quickly as it is brought forth, and you remain 
to all intents and purposes the same as you were before. 
To say, "I have sinned," in an unmeaning manner, is 
worse than worthless, for it is a mockery of God thus to 
confess with insincerity of heart. 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 

IN SIN. 

There are different stages in the sinner's history, and 
they are worth marking in the prodigal's experience. 
There is, first, the stage in which the young man sought 
independence of his father. 

The younger son said, ' ' Father, give me the portion 
of goods that falleth to me." 

We know something of that state of mind ; and, alas \ 
it is a very common one. As yet there is no open 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 399 

profligacy, no distinct rebellion against God. Religious 
services are attended, the father's God is held in rever- 
ence; but in his heart the young man desires a supposed 
liberty, he wishes to cast off all restraint. Companions 
hint that he is too much tied to his mother's apron 
strings. He himself feels that there may be some strange 
delights which he has never enjoyed ; and the curiosity 
of Mother Eve to taste the fruit of that tree which was 
good for food, and pleasant to the eye, and a tree to be 
desired to make one wise, comes into the young man's 
mind, and he wishes to put forth his hand, and take the 
fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that he 
may eat thereof. 

He never intends to spend his substance in riotous 
living, but he would like to have the opportunity of spend- 
ing it as he likes. He does not mean to be a profligate; 
still, he would like to have the honor of choosing what 
is right on his own account. At any rate, he is a man 
now; he feels his blushing honors full npon him, and he 
wants now to exercise his own freedom of will, and to 
feel that he himself is really his own master. 

" Who, indeed," he asks, " is lord over me?" Perhaps 
there are some to whom I am speaking who are just in 
such a state as that ; if so, may the grace of God arrest 
you before you go any further away from Him ! May you 
feel that, to be out of gear with God, to wish to be 
separated from Him, and to have other interests than 
those of Him who made you, must be dangerous, and 
probably will be fatal ! 

Therefore now, even now, may you come to yourself 
at this earliest stage of your history, and also come to 



400 THE PRODIGAL SON. 



love and rejoice in God as the prodigal returned to his 
father ! 

Very soon, however, this young man in the parable 
entered upon quite another stage. 

He had received his portion of goods ; all that he 
would have had at his father's death he had turned into 
ready money, and there it is. It is his own, and he may 
do what he pleases with it. Having already indulged his 
independent feeling towards his father, and his wish to 
have a separate establishment altogether from him, he 
knew that he would be freer to carry out his plans if he 
was right away. Anywhere near his father there is a 
check upon him ; he feels that the influence of his home 
somewhat clips his wings. 

If he could get into a far country, there he should 
have the opportunity to develop; and all that evolution 
could do for him he would have the opportunity of en- 
joying, so he gathers all together and goes into the far 
country. 

Sin is a dangerous joy, beloved all the more because 
of the danger ; for, where there is a fearful risk, there is 
often an intense pleasure to a daring heart ; and you, 
perhaps, are one of that venturous band, spending your 
days in folly and your nights in riotousness. 

Ere long there comes a third stage to the sinner as 
well as to the prodigal, that is when he has " spent all." 
Oh, there be some who spend all their character, spend 
all their health and strength, spend all their hope, spend 
all their uprightness, spend everything that was worth 
having ! They have spent all. 

It is a dreadful state to be in, for there comes at the 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 401 

back of it a terrible hunger. There is a weary labor to 
get something that may stay the spirit, a descending to 
the degradation of feeding swine, a willingness to eat of 
the husks that swine do eat, yet an inability to do so. 

Many have felt this craving that cannot be satisfied. 
That is the point the prodigal had reached "when he 
came to himself." 

Then, first, a sinner is beside himself. 

While he is living in his sin, he is out of his mind, he 
is beside himself. I am sure that it is so. There is 
nothing more like to madness than sin ; and it is a good 
point among those who study deep problems how far in- 
sanity and the tendency to sin go side by side, and where- 
abouts it is that great sin and entire loss of responsibility 
may touch each other. 

Every sinner is morally and responsibly insane. 

He is insane, first, because his judgment is altogether 
out of order. He makes fatal mistakes about all-im- 
portant matters. He reckons a short time of this mortal 
life to be worth all his thoughts, and he puts eternity 
into the background. He considers it possible for a 
creature to be at enmity against the Creator, or indiffer- 
ent to Him, and yet to be happy. He fancies that he 
knows better what is right for him than the law of God 
declares. He dreams that the everlasting gospel, which 
cost God the life of His own Son, is scarcely worthy of 
his attention at all, and he passes it by with contempt. 
His judgment is out of order. 

Further, his actions are those of a madman. This 
prodigal son, first of all, has interests apart from his 
father. He must have been mad to have conceived such 



402 THE PRODIGAL SON. 



an idea as that. For me to have interests apart from 
Him who made me, and keeps me alive, — for me, the 
creature of an hour, to fancy that I can have a will in 
opposition to the will of God, and that I can so live and 
prosper, — why, I must be a fool ! Yet, this sinner does 
not see that it is so, and the reason is that he is beside 
himself. 

Then, next, that young man went away from his 
home, though it was the best home in all the world. We 
can judge that from the exceeding tenderness and gener- 
osity of the father at the head of it, and from the won- 
derful way in which all the servants had such entire 
sympathy with their master. 

It was a happy home, well stored with all that the 
son could need ; yet he quits it to go he knows not 
whither, among strangers who did not care a straw for 
him, and who, when they had drained his purse, would 
not even give him a penny with which to buy bread to 
save him from starving. 

You can see that this young man is out of his mind, 
because, when he gets into the far country, he begins 
spending his money riotously. He does not lay it out 
judiciously, he spends his money for that which is not 
bread, and his labor for that which satisfieth not ; and 
that is just what the sinner does. The most reasonable 
thing in the world is to spend life for its own true design, 
and not to fling it away as though it were a pebble on 
the sea-shore. 

Further, the prodigal was a fool, he was mad, for he 
spent all. He did not even stop half way on the road 
to penury, but he went on till he had spent all. There 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 493 

is no limit to those who have started in a course of sin. 
He that stays back from it, by God's grace may keep 
back from it; but it is with sin as it is with the intoxi- 
cating cup. 

One said to me the other day, "I can drink much, 
or I can drink none ; but I have not the power to drink a 
little, for if I begin I cannot stop myself, and may go to 
any length." 

So it is with sin, God's grace can keep you abstaining 
from sin; but, if you begin sinning, oh, how one sin 
draws on another! One sin is the decoy or magnet for 
another sin, and draws it on; and one cannot tell, when 
he begins to descend this slippery slide, how quickly and 
how far he may go. Thus the prodigal spent all in utter 
recklessness; and, oh, the recklessness of some sinners 
whom I know! 

Then it was, dear friends, when the prodigal had 
spent all, that he still further proved his madness. That 
would have been the time to go home to his father, but, 
apparently, that thought did not occur to him. "He 
went and joined himself to a citizen of that country," 
still overpowered by the fascination that kept him away 
from the one place where he might have been happy; 
and that is one of the worst proofs of the madness of 
some of you who frequent these courts, that, though you 
know about the great God and His infinite mercy, and 
know something of how much you need Him and His 
grace, yet you still try to get what you want somewhere 
else, and do not go back to Him. 

I shall not have time to say much more upon this 
point, but I must remind you, that, like sinners, the 



404 THE PRODIGAL SON. 



prodigal had the ways of a madman. I have had, at 
times, to deal with those whose reason has failed them, 
and I have noticed that many of them have been per- 
fectly sane, and even wise, and clever, on all points 
except one. So is it with the sinner. 

A madman will often conceal his madness from those 
round about him ; so will a sinner hide his sin. You 
may talk with this man about morals, and you may 
watch him very closely; yet you may be a long time be- 
fore you can find him out, and be able to say to him, 
"One thing thou lackest." Perhaps, on a sudden, you 
touch that weak point, and there he stands fully developed 
before you, far gone in his insanity. He is right enough 
elsewhere, but with regard to his soul his reason is gone. 
Mad people do not know that they have been mad till 
they are cured ; they think that they alone are wise, and 
all the rest are fools. We, with tears pray God to 
deliver them from their delusions, and to bring them to 
sit at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in their right minds. 

Sometimes the sinner will be seen and known to be 
mad because he turns on his best friends, as madmen do. 
They whom they otherwise would have loved the most 
they reckon to be their worst enemies. So God, who is 
man's best Friend, is most despised, and Christ, who is 
the Friend of sinners, is rejected, and the most earnest 
Christians are often the most avoided or persecuted by 
sinners. 

I will not dwell longer on this sad fact, because I want 
to speak on the next and brighter part of my theme. 

RECLAIMED. 

It is a blessed thing when the sinner comes to him- 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 405 

self: "When he comes to himself." This is the first 
mark of grace working in the sinner, as it was the first 
sign of hope for the prodigal. 

Sometimes, this change occurs suddenly. I was 
greatly charmed, this week, by meeting with one to 
whom this happened. It was an old-fashioned sort of 
conversion, with which I was delighted. 

There came into this building, some three months ago, 
a man who had not for a long time gone to any place of 
worship. He despised such things ; he could swear, and 
drink, and do worse things still, he was careless, godless; 
but he had a mother who often prayed for him, and he 
had a brother whose prayer has never ceased for him. 
He did not come here to worship, he came just to see 
the preacher whom his brother had been hearing for so 
many years; but, coming in, somehow he was no sooner 
in the place than he felt that he was unfit to be here, so 
he went up into the top gallery, as far back as he could, 
and when some friend beckoned him to take a seat, he 
felt that he could not do sc, he must just lean against 
the wall at the back. 

Some one else invited him to sit down, but he could 
not ; but when the preacher announced his text, — "And 
the publican, standing afar off, would not lift so much as 
his eyes up to heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, 
'God be merciful to a sinner;'" — and said something 
like this, ' 4 You that stand farthest off in the Tabernacle, 
and dare not sit down because you feel guilt to be so 
great, you are the man to whom God has sent me this 
morning, and he bids you come to Christ and find mercy," 
a miracle of love was wrought. 



406 THE PRODIGAL SON. 

Then, "he came to himself," as he will tell us soon 
at the church-meeting, when he comes forward to confess 
his faith. 1 rejoiced greatly when I heard of it, for in 
his case there is a change that everybody who knows him 
can see. " He came to himself." 

On the other hand, sometimes this change is very 
gradual. I need not dwell upon that, but there are 
many who have their eyes opened by degrees. Some 
conversions are sudden, some gradual ; but in every case, 
if it be the work of the Holy Spirit, and the man comes 
to himself, it is well. 

I come now to the last instance, which I shall men- 
tion, it is the case of the prodigal. In Luke xv. 18, we 
find, the prodigal says: " Father, I have sinned." 

Oh, here is a blessed confession ! Here is that which 
proves a man to be a regenerate character — "Father, I 
have sinned." Let me picture the scene! There is the 
prodigal ; he has run away from a good home and a kind 
father, and he has spent all his money with harlots, and 
now he has none left. He goes to his old companions, 
and asks them for relief. They laugh him to scorn. 

"Oh," says he, "you have drunk my wine many a 
day; I have always stood paymaster to you in all our 
revelries ; will you not help me ?" 

"Get you gone," they say; and he is turned out of 
doors. 

He goes to all his friends with whom he had associ- 
ated, but no man gives him anything. At last a certain 
citizen of the country said, " You want something to do, 
do you ? Well, go and feed my swine." 

The poor prodigal, the son of a rich landowner, who 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 407 

had a great fortune of his own, has to go out to feed 
swine; and he a Jew too ! — the worst employment (to his 
mind) to which he could be put. See him there, in 
squallid rags, feeding swine; and what are his wages ? 
Why, so little that he " would fain have rilled his belly 
with the husks the swine eat, but no man gave to him." 

Suddenly a thought strikes his mind. 

"How is it," says he, "that in my father's house 
there is bread enough and to spare, and I perish with 
hunger ? I will arise and go to my father, and will say 
unto him, ' Father, I have sinned against heaven and 
before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son; 
make me as one of thy hired servants. ' " 

Off he goes. He begs his way from town to town. 
And at last he comes to the hill outside the village, and 
sees his father's house down below. He says, "What 
am I to do ? I cannot go back. I am afraid to go for- 
ward." 

Well, the father sees him, runs up to him, and whilst 
he is thinking of running away, his father's arms are 
round his neck, and he falls to kissing him, and then the 
son begins : ' ' Father, I have sinned against heaven and 
in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy 
son," and he was going to say the rest, but his father 
puts his hand on his mouth. 

"No more of that," says he ; "I forgive you all ; you 
shall not say anything about being a hired servant — I will 
have none of that. Come along, poor prodigal. Ho !" 
says he to the servants, " bring hither the best robe, and 
put it on him, and put shoes on his poor, bleeding feet ; 
and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it ; and let us 



408 THE PRODIGAL SON. 



eat and be merry : For this, my son was dead, and is alive 
again; he was lost and is found." 

Oh, what a precious reception for one of the chief of 
sinners ! Oh, what a God of mercy he is. Now, prodigal, 
you do the same. Has God put it into your heart? There 
are many who have been running away a long time now. 
Does God say "return?" Oh, I bid you return, then, 
for as surely as ever thou dost return He will take thee 
in. There never was a poor sinner yet who came to 
Christ, whom Christ turned away. If He turns you 
away, you will be the first. Oh, if you could but try 
Him ! Come to your Father's house, and as surely as He 
is God He will keep His word — "Him that cometh unto 
me I will in no wise cast out." 

Oh, if I might hear that some had come to Christ 
this morning, I would indeed bless God ! 

PRODIGAL'S RETURN 

"When he was yet a great way off his father saw 
him." It is true, He has always seen him. God sees 
the sinner in every state and in every position. Aye, and 
sees him with an eye of love, too — such a chosen sinner 
as is described in this text — not with complacency, but 
still with affection. God looks upon his wandering 
chosen ones. 

I say that father saw his son when he spent his living 
with harlots, saw him with deep sorrow, when he fain 
would have filled his belly with the husks which the swine 
did eat; but now, if there can be such a thing as for 
divine conscience to become more exact, the father sees 
him with an eye full of a more tender love, a greater care. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 409 

"His father saw him." Oh ! what a sight it was for a 
father to see ! His son, it is true, but his reprobate son, 
who had dishonored his father's name; brought down the 
name of an honorable house to be mentioned among the 
dregs and scum of the earth. There he is ! What a 
sight for a fathers eye! He is filthy, as though he had 
been rolling in the mire; and his gay clothing had long 
ago lost its fine colors, and hangs about him in wretched 
rags. The father does not turn away and try to forget 
him, he fixes his full gaze upon him. 

Sinner, thou knowest that God sees thee this morn- 
ing ; sitting in this house, thou art observed of the God 
of heaven. There is not a desire in thy heart unread of 
Him, nor a tear in thine eye which He does not observe. 
I tell thee He has seen thy midnight sins, He has heard 
thy cursings and thy blasphemies, and yet He has loved 
thee notwithstanding all that thou hast done. Is there 
not some comfort here ? 

Why could not he see his father ? Was it the effect 
of the tears in his eyes that he could not see ? or was it 
that his father was of quicker sight than he ? 

Sinner, thou canst not see God, for thou art unbeliev- 
ing, and carnal, and blind, but He can see thee; thy tears 
of penitence block up thy sight, but thy Father is quick 
of eye, and He beholds thee and loves thee now; in every 
glance there is love. 4< His father saw him." 

Observe, this was a loving observation, for it is writ- 
ten, M His father saw him." He did not see him as a 
mere casual observer ; he did not note him as a man 
might note his friend's child with some pity and benevo- 
lence, but he marked him as a father alone can do. 



410 THE PRODIGAL SON. 



The next* thought to be well considered is divine com- 
passion. 

" When he saw him he had compassion on him." 

Does not the word com-passion mean suffering-with 
or fellow-suffering? What is compassion, then, but 
putting yourself into the place of the sufferer and feel- 
ing his grief ? If I may so say, the father put himself 
into the son's rags, and then felt as much pity for him as 
that poor, ragged prodigal could have felt for himself. 

I saw, not many hours ago, a young man who brought 
to my mind the prodigal in this case : his face marked 
with innumerable lines of sin and wretchedness, his body 
lean and emaciated, his clothes close-buttoned, his whole 
appearance the very mirror of woe. He knocked at my 
door. I knew his case; I cannot hurt him by telling it. 
He had disgraced his family, not once or twice, but many 
times. At last he drew out what money he had in the 
business of a respectable family, came up to London with 
four hundred pounds, and in about five weeks spent it all; 
and, without a single farthing to help himself, he often 
wants for bread, and I fear he has often crept at night 
into the parks to sleep, and thus has brought aches and 
pains into his bones which will stay by him till he dies. 
He wanders the streets by day, a vagabond and a repro- 
bate. I have written to his friends, the case has been 
put before them ; they will not own him ; and, consider- 
ing his shameful conduct, I do not wonder at it. He has 
no father and no mother left. If he were helped beyond 
mere food and lodging, as far as we can judge, it would 
be money thrown away; if he were helped, he seems so 
desperately set on wickedness, that he would do the same 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 41 1 

raw -^ ' ' ' ' — " : 

again. Yet, as I think, I can but desire to see him have 
one more trial at the least, and he would have it, I doubt 
not, if his father yet lived ; but others feel, the fountains 
of their love are stayed. 

As I think of him, I cannot but feel that if he were 
a son of mine, and I saw him in such a case come to my 
door, whatever the crime was that he had committed, I 
must fall upon his neck and kiss him ; the hugest sin 
could not put out for ever the sparks of paternal love. I 
might condemn the sin in terms the sharpest and most 
severe; I might regret that he had ever been born, and 
cry with David, " O my son Absalom, my son, my son 
Absalom ! would to God I had died for thee !" but I could 
not shut him out of my house, nor refuse to call him my 
child. "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the 
Lord pitieth them that fear him." Be of good courage, 
for the text says, "He had compassion on him." 

Notice and observe carefully the swiftness of thi r 
divine love: " He ran." 

Probably he was looking out for his son, when one 
morning he just caught a glimpse of a poor, sorry figure 
in the distance. If he had been anything but the father 
he would not have known it to be his son, he was so 
altered ; but he looked and looked again, till at last he 
said, "It is he! oh! what marks of famine are upon 
him, and of suffering, too!" And down came the old 
gentleman. 

M Where is master going ? I have not seen him run 
at that rate for many a day," cried a servant. 

He does not take the road, for that is a little round 
about ; but there is a gap through the hedge, and he is 



412 THE PRODIGAL SOtf. 



jumping over it; the straightest way he can find he goes; 
and before the son has had time to notice who it is, he is 
on him, and has his arms about him, falling upon his 
neck and kissing him. 

I recollect a young prodigal who was received in the 
same way, Here he stands, it is I, myself. I sat in a 
little chapel, little dreaming that my Father saw me; 
certainly I was a great way off. I felt something of my 
need of Christ, but I did not know what I must do to be 
saved ; though taught the letter of the Word, I was 
spiritually ignorant of the plan of salvation ; though 
taught it from my youth up, I knew it not. If ever 
there was a soul that knew itself to be far off from God. 
I was that soul ; and yat in a moment, in one single mo- 
ment, no sooner had I heard the words, 4 ' Look unto me 
and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth," than I felt 
my perfect reconciliation with God, I knew my sins to 
be forgiven. There was no time for getting out of my 
heavenly Father's way; and in my case he ran aud fel) 
upon my neck to kiss me. 

After noticing thus, observation, compassion, and 
swiftness, do uot forget the nearness : ' ' He fell upon his 
neck and kissed him." 

This I can understand from experience, but it is too 
wonderful for me to explain, "he fell upon his neck." If 
he had stood at a distance and said. "John, I should be 
very glad to kiss you, but you are too filthy; I do not 
know what may be under those filthy rags; I do not feel 
inclined to fall upon your neck just yet; you are too far 
gone for me. I love you, but there is a limit to the dis- 
play of love. When I have got you into a proper statu, 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 413 

. ■ ■' m 

then I may manifest my affection to you, but I cannot 
just now, while you are so very foul." 

Oh ! no i but before he is washed he falls on his neck 
— there is the wonder of it. I can understand how God 
manifests his love to a soul that is washed in Jesus' blood 
and knows it ; but how he could fall upon the neck of a 
foul, filthy sinner as such ? There it is — not as sanctified, 
not as having anything good in himself, but as nothing 
but a filthy, foul, desperate rebel, God falls upon his 
neck and kisses him. 

It was said of that eminent saint and martyr, Bishop 
Hooper, that on one occasion a man in deep distress was 
allowed to go into his prison to tell his tale of con- 
science; but Bishop Hooper looked so sternly upon him, 
and addressed him so sternly at first, that the poor soul 
ran away, and could not get comfort until he had sought 
out another minister of a gentler aspect. 

There is yet another thought to be brought out of the 
metaphor of kissing ; we are not to pass that over with- 
out dipping our cup in the honey. In kissing his son the 
father recognizes relationship. He said, with emphasis, 
"Thou art my son," and the prodigal was 

" To his Father's bosom pressed, 
Once for all a child confessed." 

Again, that kiss was the seal ot forgiveness. He 
would not have kissed him if he had oeen angry with 
him ; he forgave him, forgave him ali. There was, more- 
over, something more than forgiveness, there was accep- 
tance — "I receive you btck into my heart, as though 
you were worthy of all that I give to your elder brother, 
and therefore I kiss you.. " 



414 THE PRODIGAL SON. 



Surely, also, this was a kiss of delight — as if he took 
pleasure in him, delighting in him, feasting his eyes with 
the sight of him, and feeling more happy to see him than 
to see all his fields, and the fatted calves, and all the 
treasures that he possessed. His delight was in seeing 
this poor, restored child. Surely this is all summed up 
in a kiss. 

We will just say these words and have done. In 
summing up one may notice that this sinner, though he 
was a great way off, was not received to full pardon and 
to adoption and acceptance by a gradual process, but he 
was received at once. He was not allowed to enter into 
the out-house first, and to sleep in a barn at night, and 
then afterwards allowed to come sometimes and have his 
meals with the servants in the kitchen, and afterwards 
allowed to sit at the bottom of the table and by degrees 
brought near. 

No; but the father fell on his neck and kissed him the 
first moment ; he gets as near to God the first moment; 
as he ever will. Oh! what a wonder is this? Fresh: 
from his pigstye was he not, yet in a father's bosom; 
fresh from the swine with their gruntings in his ears, and- 
now he hears a father's loving words; a few days ago he 
was putting husks to his mouth, and now it is a father's 
lips that aie on his lips. What a change, and all at 
once. I say ihere is no gradual process in this, but the 
thing is done at once, in a moment he comes to his 
father, his father comes to him, and he is in his father's 
arms. 

Observe again, as there was not a gradual reception, 
there was not a partial reception. He was not forgiven 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 4 15 

on conditions; he was not received to hi*» father's heart 
if he would do so-and-so. No ; there were no "ifs" and 
no "buts;" he was kissed, and clothed, and feasted, 
without a single condition of any kind whateuer. No 
questions asked — his father had cast his offences behind 
his back in a moment, and he was received without even 
a censure or a rebuke. It was not a partial reception. 
He was not received to some things and refused others. 
He was not, for instance, allowed to call himself a child, 
but to think himself an inferior. No; he wears the best 
robe; he has the ring on his finger ; he has the shoes on 
his feet ; and he joins in eating the fatted calf ; and so 
the sinner is not received to a second-class place, but he 
is taken to the full position of a child of God. It is not 
a gradual nor yet a partial reception. 

And once more, it is not a temporary reception. His 
father did not kiss him and then turn him out at the back 
door. He did not receive him for a time, and then after- 
wards say to him, " Go thy way; I have had pity upon 
thee; thou hast now a new start, go into the far country 
and mend thy ways." 

No; but the father would say to him what he had 
already said to the elder brother, ' ' Son, thou art ever 
with me, and all that I have is thine." 

In the parable, the son could not have the goods 
restored, for he had spent his part ; but in the truth itself 
and matter of fact, God does make the man who comes 
in at the eleventh hour equal with the one who comes in 
at the first hour of the day; He gives every man the 
penny; and he gives to the child who has been the most 
wandering the same privileges, and ultimately the 



416 THE PRODIGAL SON. 



heritage, which he gives to his own who have been these 
many years with him, and have not transgressed his com- 
mandments. That is a remarkable passage in one of the 
prophets where he says, • ' Ekron as a Jebusite ;" mean- 
ing that the Philistine, when converted, should be treated 
just the same as the original inhabitants of Jerusalem ; 
that the branches of the olive which were grafted in, have 
the same privileges as the original branches. 

When God takes men from being heirs of wrath, and 
makes them heirs of grace, they have just as much 
privilege at the first as though they had been heirs of 
grace twenty years, because in God's sight they always 
were heirs of grace, and from all eternity he viewed His 
most wandering sons. 

O, I would to God that He would in His infinite 
mercy bring some of His own dear children home this 
day, and He shall have the praise, world without end. 

I have now to speak of the joy of the sinner. The 
son was glad. He did not express it in words, as far as 
I can see in the parable, but he felt it none the less — 
but all the more. Sometimes silence is discreet, and it 
was so in this case; at other times it is absolutely forced 
upon you by inability to utter the emotion, and this also 
was true of the prodigal. 

The son's heart was too full for utterance in words, 
but he had speaking eyes, and a speaking countenance 
as he looked on that dear father. As he put on the robe, 
the ring, and the shoes, he must have been too astonished 
to speak. He wept in showers that day, but the tears 
were not salt with grief ; they were sweet tears, glittering 
like the dew of the morning. 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 417 

What would make the son glad, think you? Why, 
the father's love, the father's forgiveness, and restoration 
to his old place in his father's heart. That was the 
point. But then each gift would serve as a token of 
that love and make the joy overflow. 

There was the robe put on, — the dress of a son, and 
of a son well beloved and accepted. Have you noticed 
how the robe answered to his confession ? The sen- 
tences match each other thus : " Father, I have sinned;" 
— " Bring forth the best robe and put it on him." 

Cover all his sins with Christ's righteousness; put 
away his sin by imputing to him the righteousness of the 
Lord Jesus. 

The robe also met his condition ; he was in rags, 
therefore, ' ' Bring forth the best robe and put it on him," 
and you shall see no more of his rags. It was fit that 
he should be thus arrayed, in token of his restoration. 
He who is re-endowed with the privileges of a son should 
not be dressed in sordid clothes, but wear raiment suit- 
able to his station. 

Moreover, as a festival was about to begin he ought 
to wear a festive garment. It would not be seemly for 
him to feast and be merry in his rags. Put the best robe 
on him that he may be ready to take his place at the 
banquet. 

So, when the penitent comes to God he is not only 
covered, as to the past, by the righteousness of Christ, 
but he is prepared for the future blessedness which is 
reserved for the pardoned ones, yea, he is fitted to begin 
the rejoicing at once. 

Then came the ring, a luxury rather than a necessary, 



418 THE PRODIGAL SON. 



except that now he was a son it was well that he should 
be restored to all the honors of his relationship. The 
signet ring in the East in former times conferred great 
privileges : in those days men did not sign their names, 
but stamped with their signet upon wax, so that the ring 
gave a man power over property, and made him a sort 
of other self to the man whose ring he wore. The father 
gives the son a ring, and how complete an answer was 
that gift to another clause of his confession. 

Let me read the two sentences together, ' ' I am no 
more worthy to be called thy son." " Put a ring on his 
hand." 

The gift precisely meets the confession. It also tallied 
with his changed condition. The ring indicated the 
penitent's liberty from sin, and his enjoyment of the full 
privileges of his Father's house 

O, beloved, the Lord will make you glad if you come 
to Him, by putting the seal of the Holy Spirit's indwell- 
ing upon you, which is both the earnest of the inheri- 
tance and the best adornment of the hand of your 
practical character. This ring upon your ringer will 
declare your marriage union to Christ, set forth the 
eternal love which the Father has fixed npon you, and to 
the abiding pledge of the perfect work of the Holy 
Ghost. 

Then they put shoes on his feet. I suppose he had 
worn out his own. In the East servants do not usually 
wear shoes at home, and especially in the best rooms of 
the house. The master and his son wear the sandals, 
but not the servants, so that this order was an answer to 
the last part of the penitent's prayer, « ' Make me as one 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 419 

of thy servants." " No," says the father, " put shoes on 
his feet. " In the forgiven sinner the awe which puts off 
its shoes is to be overmatched by the familiarity which 
wears the shoes which infinite love provides. The for- 
given one is no longer to tremble at Sinai, but he is to 
come unto Mount Zion, and to have familiar intercourse 
with God. Thus also the restored one was shod for filial 
service — he could run upon his father's errands, or work 
in his father's fields, He had now in every way all that 
he could want — the robe that covered him, the ring that 
adorned him, and the shoe that prepared him for travel 
or labor. 

Now, ye awakened and anxious ones who are longing 
to draw nigh to God, I would that this description of the 
joy of the prodigal would influence you to come at once. 

Come, ye naked, and He will say, ' ' Bring forth the 
best robe." 

Come, ye that see your natural deformity through sin, 
and He will adorn you with a ring of beauty. 

Come, ye who feel as if you could not come, for ye 
have bleeding, weary feet, and He will shoe you with the 
silver sandals of His grace. Amen. 



ZACCEUEUS 



There are certain persons in the world who are lost 
in a more apparent sense than others are — I mean that 



420 ZACCH.EUS. 

they are lost to society, to respect, and, perhaps, to 
decency. 

That was the case with Zacchaeus. I do not know 
what may have been his parentage. Possibly, he was 
born of most reputable folk, but he showed a vicious 
mind, and he turned aside from the good old paths; he 
loved low company and despised his father's seriousness. 
There was great grief in that household on his account. 
Zaccheus was lost to his parents! 

They had hoped he would have been a credit to their 
name, but instead thereof he was a dishonor; they trusted 
that he would be the staff of their old age, but now he 
was a scourge to them. They scarcely dared to whisper 
his name in any company, for he had joined with the men 
of Belial, and mingled with the lewdest sort in the city; 
and by-and-by, as men go from bad to worse, Zacchaeus 
had taken up with the low and infamous trade of a tax- 
gatherer, and he so pushed his way in it by his sharp- 
ness and hardness of heart, that he became chief of the 
odious band of the extortionate oppressors of the poor 
people. 

The Pharisees, of course, never looked at him ; they 
passed him by as though he were a dog, while the ordin- 
ary people of Jericho, when he was out of hearing, cursed 
him. Had he not exacted upon one — had he not op- 
pressed another ? 

His very name had a ban set upon it. He was lost 
to society. But the Son of man sought him and saved 
him, lost as he was. Society, to this day, has its rules, 
by the breach of which persons become outcasts. These 



BIBLE CHARACTERS. — C. H. SPURGEON. 421 

rules are, some of them, commendable, but others are 
arbitrary, one-sided, cruei and hypocritical. 

We have sometimes heard men of the world ridicule 
what they are pleased to call the cant of the Church, but 
we take leave to say that there is no cant so desperately 
canting as the cant of the world. 

There occurred, not long ago, an instance of the 
world's relentless cruelty to those whom it is fashionable 
to brand with dishonor. A person who had, perhaps, 
fallen into sin in her earlier days, was restored to a re- 
spectable position ; she was received in society among 
the noblest, but on a sudden, dastardly lips revealed a 
secret, and a sin committed far back was raked up against 
her; henceforth the world put away the woman, never 
asking her if she had repented, or taking her after-con- 
duct into consideration. 

The world is so pure, and chaste, and immaculate 
that it shut out the erring one as if she had been a leper. 
Though itself reeking with foulest abominations, society 
feigns a virtuousness pure as the lily and chaste as the 
snow. The world is cold, hard, cruel, towards a certain 
class of offenders. It receives into its embraces* men 
who are, every inch of them, unclean ; but a betrayed, 
deceived, broken-hearted woman, the world shakes off as 
if she were a viper. This is the society which boasts its 
gallantry ! This is the just, fair-dealing world ! 

It caresses its noble rakes, but casts off the most 
penitent among the betrayed. Ah, hypocritical, canting 
world ! Ah, hollow, lying world, to pretend to a virtue 
which thou dost not know ! Rail not at the inconsis- 
tencies of religious men while thine own are so glaring ! 



422 ZACCUMVS. 

Cruel tyrant, learn meroy and do justice, ere thou be- 
•omest a judge of the servants of the Lord. 

Now, the Son of man is come to seek and to save 
those whom the world puts outside its camp. The world 
says "No;" " Shame on her ; " "We will not speak to 
her;" but Christ Jesus says, "I have come to pardon 
her, and to restore her, and she shall love me much, be- 
cause much has been forgiven her ! " 

There are other cases in which men, by their crimes, 
most justly place themselves outside the pale of society; 
and for the preservation of order they are separated from 
the company of honest men. Now, even these should 
have a door of hope left to them, and a way of return. 
The cry too often is, " Down with him ; down with him; 
he has sinned against his fellow-men; put him aside, what 
care we what becomes of him." 

But thr Son of man, who is infinitely pure and holy, 
who has a genuine horror of sin, so that he really hates 
it and loathes it, yet does not loathe sinners, but has come 
to seek and to save them. The sweep of divine com- 
passion is not limited by the customs of mankind ; the 
boundaries of Jesus' love are not to be fixed by Phari- 
saical self-righteousness. 

1 ■ The Son of man is come to seek and to save that 
which was lost." 



AMERICA. 423 



AMERICA. 



My country, 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing ; 
Land where my fathers die4> 
Land of the pilgrim's pride, 
From every mountain side 

Let freedom ring. 

My native country, thee, 
Land of the noble free, 

Thy name I love ; 
I love thy rocks and rills, 
Thy woods and templed b'JU, 
My heart with rapture thrills 

Like that above. 

Let music swell the breeze, 
And ring from all the trees 

Sweet freedom's song ; 
Let mortal tongues awake, 
Let all that breathe partake, 
Let rocks their silence break, 

The sound prolong. 

tor father's God to thee, 
Author of liberty, 

To thee we sing ; 
Long may our land be bright, 
With freedom's holy light ; 
Protect us by thy might, 

Great God, our King. 



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